Yemenis Ramzi bin al Shaibh and Walid bin Attash Seek to Admit Guilt in 9/11 Plot
Update: Judge refuses the plea which includes the condition by the five detainees that they are immediatelyh sentenced to death, that’s their request which the judge refused.
Both are also accused in the USS Cole bombing, which they should hopefully be tried for as well.
Its unclear at this point if this is a formal pleading or just an admission of guilt. In a letter to the court, they requested a hearing to announce their confessions. The court is determining if it is proper to plead guilty in a death penalty case or if a defense is automatically required. The two also fired their lawyers amid the lawyers’ charges the defendants were overly influenced by Khalid Sheik Mohammed in making the guilty plea.
BY CAROL ROSENBERG Miami Herald
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — Confessed al Qaeda kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four 9/11 accused co-conspirators offered to plead guilty Monday to orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The surprise turnabout came in what was meant to be a routine pre-trial hearing at the war court, or military commission.
The Pentagon seeks the death penalty in their case.
But the defendants made no mention of the death penalty or ”martyrdom” as Mohammed calls it, during the morning session before Army Col. Stephen Henely.
Instead the judge asked each man whether he understood that a guilty plea in the case waived his right to challenge the charges, and agree that the U.S. could prove his guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
”I understand,” said Mohammed, kicking off the serial questioning. “I hope that you will assign a proceeding in the near future, as fast as possible, to get over with this play.”
His nephew, Pakistani Ammar al Baluchi, echoed his uncle in fluent English: “Yes, I do.”
Added Yemeni Ramzi bin al Shibh, accused of helping the Hamburg, Germany, suicide squad: “We the brothers, all of us, we would like to submit our confession.”
Yemeni Walid Bin Attash, who allegedly trained some of the so-called ”muscle men” among the hijackers, likewise agreed.
The judge denied the fifth man, Mustafa al Hawsawi of Saudi Arabia, the opportunity to likewise agree because his defense attorney, Army Maj. Jon Jackson had filed a motion arguing he was not mentally competent to do so.
Mohammed and the others appeared at the fourth pre-trial session of their Guantánamo commission in the complex mass murder case, in which they allegedly conspired to have suicide squads slam hijacked airplanes into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, resulting in the deaths of 2,973 people.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
The self-proclaimed ringleader of the 9/11 attacks has boasted of 30 other plots against Western targets, including the Bali bombing and planned attacks on Heathrow. Raised in Kuwait, Mohammed is of Pakistan extraction and once studied engineering in North Carolina.
He met Osama bin Laden during the fight against the Russians in Afghanistan and rose to number three in al-Qaeda. Showed a taste for go-go bars during sojourn in south-east Asia, where he hatched a failed plot in the mid-1990s to blow up ten passenger jets simultaneously. He was captured from a safe house in the Pakistani city of Lahore in 2003 and subjected to waterboarding – torture by simulated drowning – in CIA detention.
Ramzi Bin al-Shibh
The second-ranking of the five defendants, al-Shibh has said he tried and failed to get a US visa for the September 11 attacks. Based in Hamburg, US officials claim he was a key link man between al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and the hijackers in the US and Europe.
Interviewed by al-Jazeera reporter in 2002, he showed souvenirs of the 9/11 planning, including a flight instruction book signed by lead hijacker Mohammed Atta.
At his arraignment in June, it emerged he has been prescribed “psychotropic drugs” in detention, leading the judge to order that he be represented by a lawyer.
Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi
A Saudi national accused of arranging funding for the 9/11 attacks, US officials have said that clear financial links have been found between al-Hawsawi and the hijackers. He was captured in Pakistan in 2003. He is the only one of the five to seek legal representation, and he has claimed that he was not a member of al-Qaeda and did not know what money being to suspects was for.
Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali
A nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he served as a key lieutenant to his uncle during the September 11 planning. US intelligence officials have said he delivered funds to the hijackers and later helped Mohammed communicate with “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and other plotters. Born in Pakistan and raised in Kuwait, he is said to have assumed responsibility for planning hijacking attacks from Heathrow airport and bombings against Western targets in Karachi in 2003.
Walid Bin Attash
Allegedly picked as a hijacker, he was prevented from taking part after being arrested briefly in his home country Yemen.
Has admitted bombing the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and helping with the attacks on two US embassies in Africa in 1998, which killed 400 people.
He is accused of helping two of the hijackers with logistics.
