GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Almost seven years after terrorists hijacked airliners and used them as missiles to kill 2,973 people, five men who allegedly plotted the attacks face a military tribunal today.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the confessed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, will be arraigned simultaneously with four other detainees inside a high-security courthouse at the remote U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Mohammed boasted of numerous attacks against the United States in a closed military hearing last year, and the al-Qaeda kingpin and his confederates will be given the chance to speak out again in their war crimes trial, according to Air Force Brig. Gen. Tom Hartmann.
“In the course of trial they’ll have opportunity to present their case, any way they want to present it, subject to rules and procedures,” Hartmann said. “That’s a great freedom and a great protection we are providing to them. We think … it is the American way.”
The arraignment will launch the highest-profile test yet of the tribunal system. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down an earlier system as unconstitutional in 2006, and is to rule this month on the rights of Guantanamo prisoners.
Mohammed and the four alleged co-conspirators all face possible death sentences.
Family members of those killed on Sept. 11, 2001, wanted to attend, but the military said it was too difficult logistically to accommodate dozens more people. Instead, the military is planning to show the trial but not the arraignment on closed-circuit television to victims’ families gathered on U.S. military bases.
