FORT MEADE, Md. - An alleged top al-Qaida lieutenant charged with four other men in the 9/11 conspiracy angrily lashed out Monday against the U.S. military tribunal system, saying the process had eliminated any desire for them to defend themselves against possible death sentences.
Alleged al-Qaida training-camp steward Walid bin Attash apparently spoke for his co-defendants, including alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, in voicing his disgust during the first day of pretrial hearings at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
While the others said they had no questions about their right to attend or skip the hearings, Attash told the judge that, either way, the military commissions process was heavily stacked against them.
"We don't have any motivating factors that would invite us to come to the court," he said. "We have been dealing with our attorneys for a year and a half and haven't been able to build any trust with them. Our attorneys are bound, and we are bound, too.
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"There are many things the court could to do to help motivate us to come to court, but there is nothing that motivates us now. ... The government does not want us to understand or hear or say anything."
The judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, did not respond.
Attash's attorney, Cheryl Bormann, complained that every time Attash is moved from his cell to the court area he is heavily chained and shackled, making it extremely difficult for her to confer with him. She asked the judge to remove the restraints. He refused.
"Within these four walls, they are not to be shackled," Pohl said of his courtroom. But what happens before they get there, Pohl said, is a matter for those guarding the 166 detainees in one of the most fortified prisons in the world.
The five men in the Sept. 11 case have spent nearly a decade in the island prison and have pleaded not guilty. In the hearings this week, their attorneys will seek more information about secret "black site" locations overseas where their clients were first held.
The attorneys also hope to acquire new details about the prisoners' harsh treatment, such as Mohammed's repeated waterboarding, and plan to use that evidence as proof their clients were physically and mentally tortured.
James G. Connell III, an attorney for alleged al-Qaida financier Ammar al Baluchi, said the defense team was on "a search for truth" and that the hearings would "begin to take a first step toward finding the truth about what happened in the torture of these men."
The other defendants are Ramzi Binalshib, the alleged pilot cell manager, and Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi, an alleged al-Qaida financier. The hearings are being simulcast at Fort Meade.
