Three of five alleged plotters in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks demanded on Thursday to be sentenced to death at a US military hearing, saying they had long sought martyrdom.
“This is what I want, I’m looking to be a martyr for long time,” Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, a Kuwaiti of Pakistani origin who is the alleged mastermind of the attacks, told the hearing at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, southern Cuba.
His words were echoed by two other defendants, Wallid bin Attash and Ramzi Binalshibh, who, like Sheikh Mohammed, also sought to dismiss their legal teams to conduct their own defense.
“I’ve been seeking martyrdom for five years. I tried to get a visa for 9/11, but I could not,” said Binalshibh, who was a member of the German-based Hamburg cell of al-Qaeda, which planned and then carried out the attacks.
A native of Yemen, Binalshibh shared a Hamburg apartment with Mohammed Atta, a key leader of the 19 hijackers who took over four planes on the day to use as weapons, but unlike Atta and the others he was unable to get a US visa.
“I understand that I will be killed for the sake of God, but I don’t understand that I’m guilty. I refuse that I am guilty. And I know that if I am killed, I will be killed in the sake of God,” said Binalshibh, 36.
“You killed my brother who was younger than me during the war, and this is my wish to be in your hands,” Attash, a Saudi of Yemeni origin, also told the military hearing presided over by judge Colonel Ralph Kohlmann.
Sheikh Mohammed, 43, has claimed to have been behind not just the Sept. 11 attacks but also some 30 operations against the West in the past decade, according to transcripts of his interrogation released by the Pentagon.
His appearance on Thursday was the first time he had been seen in public since his capture in Pakistan on March 1, 2003.
He, Attash and Binalshibh, along with Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustapha al-Hawsawi, have been charged over the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon which killed some 3,000 people.
They have been charged with conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property, terrorism and material support for terrorism.
Ali, born in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, broke ranks by not demanding to be sentenced to death, but he did announce his intention to defend himself, saying the lawyers were “here for decoration.”
“I’m here after five years of torture,” said the 30-year-old Ali, who is Sheikh Mohammed’s nephew. “There is no justice from the beginning, from the day I was arrested until now. If there is no justice, anything can happen.”
Kohlmann sought to convince the defendants not to represent themselves, saying it was “not a good idea” to dismiss their lawyers.
Several defense lawyers tried to intervene, saying they had only recently been appointed and had not yet had time to build up the trust of their clients.
But Sheikh Mohammed replied firmly in English: “I know they are very qualified, they are the best team they told me. But the problem is their president, George Bush.”
All the suspects were arrested between 2002 and 2003 and transferred to the controversial base on Cuba in 2006, allegedly after spending years in secret CIA prisons.
Kohlmann agreed Sheikh Mohammed and Attash could conduct their own defenses, but would not rule immediately on Binalshibh after his lawyers argued he had some mental health troubles.
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