A Guantanamo prisoner accused in the Sept. 11 attacks complained yesterday that his confinement and obstructions by the US military are complicating his court-approved effort to serve as his own lawyer.
Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, one of five men charged in the attacks, said the military did not deliver two letters and a motion that he wrote to the judge ahead of the pretrial hearing.
The judge, Marine Colonel Ralph Kohlmann, said Ali’s situation will only become more difficult and tried to persuade him to accept his lawyers. Without a security clearance, he said Ali will not have access to certain classified material during the death penalty trial.
“The way the rules are, you will not have access to classified material to assist you in your case,” he said.
Ali said one of his letters disputed allegations that the defendants were coerced into rejecting their lawyers — the focus of this week’s hearings — saying the accusations were the result of a poorly translated joke by the attacks’ confessed mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
“I should have a right to write a letter to the judge directly,” said Ali, a nephew and alleged lieutenant to Mohammed who spoke in English.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Commander Jeffrey Gordon, said the military is looking into Ali’s allegations. He declined further comment.
The five co-defendants were transferred to Guantanamo from secret CIA prisons in 2006 and face possible execution if convicted on charges including murder and conspiracy for the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Four of them say they will represent themselves, setting up further logistical challenges as they attempt to mount a defense while locked in a top-secret prison at the remote US Navy base in southeast Cuba.
Kohlmann called the hearings this week to explore allegations that Mohammed bullied the others into going along with his decision to represent himself at the June 5 arraignment. One defense lawyer said an interpreter overheard other defendants asking a detainee, “So, you’re in the Army now?”
But Ali said Mohammed was only teasing another detainee, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, about the white robe he wore inside the courtroom.
“Mr. Mohammed was joking, just criticizing the clothes he was wearing. He was saying, ‘Are you in the American Navy now,’” he said. “We need translators from our native language who understand our accent.”
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