Pat Dollard | Young Americans

By Fanny Carrier - The Austalian:

FIVE alleged terrorists accused of plotting the September 11 attacks will appear in public this week for the first time in years at a military hearing at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, considered the brains of the attacks, along with alleged co-conspirators Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Wallid bin Attash and Mustapha al-Hawsawi, face the death penalty if convicted by the military commission on the US military base in Cuba.

They are due on Thursday to appear before the judge, Marine Corps Colonel Ralph Kohlmann, to face charges including conspiracy, murder, attacking civilians, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property, terrorism, and material support for terrorism.

The trials have been overshadowed by the controversy surrounding their arrests and whether so-called confessions published by the US military were exacted under torture.

“You can expect that the defence is going to be making strong arguments that the evidence the government wants to use against these individuals is tainted,” Geoffrey Corn, a professor at South Texas College of Law who has provided legal counsel to the defence, said.

“If it was torture it is inadmissible. If it is not torture but coercion, then the judge has to make a decision. How does a judge define what is torture and forced coercion?”

Earlier this year the CIA admitted that Sheikh Mohammed was subjected to a technique of simulated drowning known as “water-boarding” which critics have denounced as torture.

But another legal expert hit back that the case against the five is solid, even though none of the 19 hijackers who seized four planes on the day to use as weapons survived to give evidence.

“The evidence against the five defendants is overwhelming. It does not depend on any evidence that has been obtained under duress,” said legal analyst David Rivkin, a former counsel to ex-presidents Ronald Reagan and George H Bush.

Sheikh Mohammed, 43, has claimed to have been behind not just the September 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 will be the first time he has been seen in public since his capture in Pakistan on March 1, 2003.

Binalshibh has refused to take part in the administrative process, while both Attash and Hawsawi have essentially admitted the charges against them. Ali however has denied all the allegations.

Thursday’s hearing is due to take place in a purpose-built room at the US military base which was constructed to allow the judge to seal off the hearing from the public if parts of the testimonies are deemed to be confidential.

The five defendants will initially have the chance to plead guilty or not to the charges. Some may decide they do not want to take part in any further hearings.

Three thousand people were killed in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon.