New delay in Sept. 11 trial at Gitmo

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) - A military judge agreed Monday to another delay in the war crimes trial of five Guantanamo prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attacks, giving U.S. officials more time to decide how to try them.

Army Col. Stephen Henley agreed to the U.S. government's request for a 60-day continuance, a delay intended to give President Barack Obama's administration enough time to decide whether it should move the case, along with those of other prisoners held at Guantanamo, to a civilian court or a revamped war crimes tribunal.

Henley had scheduled a hearing at the U.S. base in Cuba to allow Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants — all three of whom are serving as their own lawyers — to voice any objections to the Obama's administration's third continuance in their case.

But Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, and the other defendants sent a note to the judge saying they did not oppose the delay, and Henley granted a written order without a hearing.

The court was also scheduled address a series of legal motions from the defendants, including a request to dismiss American Civil Liberties Union lawyers and standby military attorneys assigned to help with their case.

They were also seeking additional materials to help prepare their defense, including a printer, Arabic dictionaries and several movies, including one about the 1968 slayings of Vietnamese civilians at My Lai by U.S. soldiers.

Bob Swann, a Department of Defense civilian prosecutor, argued that the three, who chose not to attend the court session, should be "forcibly extracted and brought to this court so we can litigate these motions."

"It's not correct not to have these defendants in the courtroom," Swann told the court.

The judge declined to order that they be forced to attend and said he would rule later on the motions.

Two other Sept. 11 defendants — Ramzi bin al Shibh and Mustafa al Hawsawi — have not yet been ruled mentally competent to act as their own lawyers and were excluded from the hearing.

The chief prosecutor, Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, said a decision on where to try Mohammed and four others charged in the Sept. 11 attacks will be made by Nov. 16. Even if the case remains in the hands of the military, it would have to be moved from Guantanamo if Obama keeps his pledge to close the detention center at the U.S. base in Cuba in January.

The U.S. holds about 225 prisoners at Guantanamo. Murphy said about 65 are "viable" cases for prosecution.

Military prosecutors are ready to try the cases, but four U.S. attorneys offices in New York and the Washington DC area are reviewing the files for possible federal civilian trials, he said.

Mohammed has made nine appearances before the war crimes court. He has proudly proclaimed his role in the attacks and called for the dismissal of the lawyers appointed by the court to assist with his defense.

The civilian lawyers Mohammed and his co-defendants are seeking to fire were hired by the ACLU as part of its "John Adams Project," an $8.5 million effort to provide top civilian defense for detainees. They include David Nevin and Scott McKay, who successfully defended Sami al-Hussayen, a University of Idaho graduate student charged with aiding terrorists.

Mohammed, captured by U.S. authorities in Pakistan in 2003, has said he wants to be executed by the United States to achieve martyrdom.

Declassified 2004 CIA documents, released Aug. 24 by the Obama administration, detailed some of the treatment that Mohammed and other terrorism suspects underwent as part of a harsh regime of interrogation.

Among other things, interrogators told him that "if anything else happens in the United States, 'We're going to kill your children,'" and continuously poured large volumes of water on a cloth covering his mouth — the practice known as waterboarding. Previous documents revealed that he was waterboarded 183 times.