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Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > 9/11 terror planners "We are proud of 9/11" "We are doing Jihad for the cause of God"

9/11 terror planners "We are proud of 9/11" "We are doing Jihad for the cause of God"

January 20, 2009

HoustonText Text-Dateline" id=id2429881>

Terror suspect defiant at Guantanamo hearing

By CAROL ROSENBERG MIAMI HERALD

Jan. 20, 2009, 12:39AM

HoustonText Text-Dateline">GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba— Guards shackled 9/11 terror suspect Ramzi bin al-Shibh to the courtroom floor, and suspect Khalid Sheik Mohammed again said he welcomed death Monday as the U.S. government sought to press ahead with its showcase war crimes trial.

HoustonText" id=id2436668>Throughout it all Judge Stephen Henley, an Army colonel, handled procedural issues in the case for which the Pentagon seeks military execution.

HoustonText" id=id2436673>"I really don't care whether I'm shackled or not," declared bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni whose U.S.-appointed lawyers argue he may be mentally unfit to stand trial in the mass murder of nearly 3,000 on Sept. 11, 2001.

HoustonText" id=id2436679>Court records show that prison camp doctors have bin al-Shibh on undisclosed psychotropic drugs. Monday, he and his four co-accused were wearing the white prison camp uniforms of compliant captives.

HoustonText" id=id2435027>Obeying the judge's order, Navy guards surrounded bin al-Shibh and removed the chains that clamped his ankles to an eye-bolt.

HoustonText" id=id2435033>Monday's was the fifth hearing in the 9/11 capital case, which accuses the five men of financing, training and orchestrating the 19 men who hijacked the airliners for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terror group.

HoustonText" id=id2435043>All five men were held and interrogated for years by the CIA before their September 2006 transfer for trial here, and several of the accused asked the judge to exclude their American lawyers from the defense tables. "The people who have tortured me received their salaries from the American government, and the lawyers do, too," Mohammed said.

HoustonText" id=id2435057>Later he said: "We don't care about the capital punishment; we are doing jihad for the cause of God."

HoustonText" id=id2435063>At one point, Shibh chimed in: "We are proud of 9/11."

HoustonText" id=id2435068>Henley spurned an 11th-hour request by the chief Pentagon prosecutor to postpone this week's session until after the Obama administration takes over.

HoustonText" id=id2434221>Two pretrial hearings were held simultaneously Monday — for the 9/11 accused and for alleged teen terrorist Omar Khadr of Canada.

HoustonText" id=id2434228>In both cases, Henley and Judge Patrick Parrish ruled that the cases could move forward with pretrial hearings. Khadr is to go to trial Jan. 26. The five 9/11 accused have no trial date.

HoustonText">http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/world/6220017.html

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