“Our success is the greatest praise of the Lord.”
The Five 9-11 Co-defendants
In a letter to the court
December 8, 2008
The mastermind of the 9-11 attacks and four co-defendants may plead guilty.
The 5 appeared at a pre-trial Gitmo hearing today.
The BBC reported:
Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants have said they want to plead guilty at a pre-trial hearing at Guantanamo Bay.
But Mr Mohammed said he would postpone entering his plea until an investigation into the mental state of two of his co-defendants was complete.
Military Judge Col Stephen Henley had ordered the probe into whether the two were mentally competent to stand trial.
The five men face death sentences if convicted of roles in the 2001 attacks.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed personally beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi, Pakistan, in early 2002.
However… This news today did not sit well with the American Civil Liberties Union according to STACLU.
The ACLU released this statement on today’s news:
The following can be attributed to Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union who is at Guantánamo observing today’s proceedings:
“This afternoon’s hearing was just another chapter in the Guantánamo military commissions debacle. Neither the military judge nor the accused are clear about how these proceedings will move forward. What is abundantly clear is that no matter how hard the government tries to advance the military commissions, this process doesn’t work. Questions of the death penalty and the competence of several of the defendants are still unresolved – and not likely to be resolved. The only solution is to shut the military commissions down and start from scratch.”