9/11 Patsy KSM Said Keen to Confess Before Obama Denies Him the Right to a Military Tribunal in Lieu of a Real Trial

Alleged 9/11 Plotters Offer to Confess at Guantánamo

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: December 8, 2008

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — All five of the Guantánamo detainees charged with planning and coordinating the Sept. 11 attacks have asked a military judge to accept their confessions in full.

The request appeared to be intended to cut short any effort to try them, and to challenge the United States government to put them to death. But the military judge in the case, Col. Steven Henley of the Army, indicated that he would not accept formal pleas from the men right away, and that formal proceedings to do so may be a while off.

At the start of what had been expected to be routine proceedings Monday, Judge Henley disclosed that he had received a written statement from the five men. The statement said the five planned to stop filing written motions and instead “to announce our confessions to plea in full.”

Judge Henley began methodically questioning each of the five men to determine if they agreed with the joint statement, which was written after lengthy meetings among them that military officials had permitted them to hold in recent weeks.

As he questioned one of the men, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has described himself as the mastermind of the 2001 attacks, Judge Henley asked whether Mr. Mohammmed was prepared to enter pleas to the charges against him today. “Yes,” Mr. Mohammed answered brusquely.

“We don’t want to waste our time with motions,” Mr. Mohammed said. “All of you are paid by the U.S. government. I’m not trusting any American.”

Another of the detainees, Ramzi bin al Shibh, told the judge, “We the brothers, all of us, would like to submit our confession.” Mr. bin al Shibh is charged with being the primary contact with the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Military prosecutors have sought the death penalty against all five men.

Judge Henley directed the prosecutors to provide him with a legal brief on whether the Military Commissions Act, which governs the proceedings here, would permit the imposition of the death penalty without a vote of the military panel that hears cases here, much as a jury votes on cases in civilian court.

Because the proceedings this week were to consider legal motions to be decided by the judge alone, there was no panel present on Monday.

In addition, the question of whether two of the five men are mentally competent to represent themselves arose again in the hearing. Those two detainees are represented by lawyers appointed by the court, who have raised the competency issue; the other three, including Mr. Mohammed, are representing themselves, with advice from civilian and military lawyers.

The judge ruled that he would permit the three men who represent themselves to withdraw all legal motions filed on their behalf, which would set the stage for a guilty plea. But he said that the two whose competency is in question, Mr. bin al Shibh and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, would not be permitted to make decisions about their cases on Monday. “That may happen at some point in the future,” Judge Henley said.

He directed that the two men’s appointed lawyers to proceed in arguing a series of legal motions that had been on the commission’s agenda. After a recess, the commission was to reconvene at 1 pm.

The judge also indicated at the hearing that even if he agreed to accept the pleas, from some or all of the five men, he would hold a later session to examine the full facts behind the detainees’ decisions to plead guilty.

The unusual events were not a complete surprise. There had been indications for months that the detainees were resisting working with the military lawyers assigned to represent them. In addition, a move to cut short the proceedings had been seen by some lawyers working in the system here as a way Mr. Mohammed and the other men could draw maximum public attention to their cases and, potentially, to make statements about their political views without the government having the opportunity to detail their acts, including the specifics of the plot that caused the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, in court.

The American political calendar may also be a factor. Many people inside and outside the government expect President-elect Obama to close down the military commissions that have been used by the Bush administration, and to direct that many detainees now held in Guantánamo Bay be prosecuted instead in the civilian American legal system.

If that indeed happens in the first days of the Obama administration, then Monday’s proceedings will have been the detainees’ last opportunity to challenge the widely criticized system here with guilty pleas that could yield them the opportunity for what they see as martyrdom.