Group requests stay for alleged 9/11 plotters

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2 hours ago

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — A U.S. human rights group on Monday called for a stay of all war-crimes proceedings against five Guantanamo Bay prisoners charged with orchestrating the Sept. 11 attacks until after President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

Lawyers for the New York-based Human Rights First said they filed the friend-of-the-court brief because military prosecutors are likely to seek another hearing in Guantanamo's highest-profile case before Obama takes over Jan. 20.

"There is no legitimate reason to expend judicial resources prosecuting a capital case under a system that will be obsolete before the matter can be tried," the group's brief said.

Obama opposes the military war-crimes trials and has pledged to close the prison on a Navy base in southeast Cuba, which holds 250 men.

The defendants in the Sept. 11 case wrote a letter on Nov. 4 — the day Obama was elected president — saying they wanted to confess, presumably to plead guilty and face the death penalty. At least two of the men, including the self-described mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have said they want to be executed to achieve martyrdom.

But the formal confessions were delayed when a judge ruled this month that two of the defendants couldn't enter pleas until the court determines their mental competency. The other three said they would also wait.

The judge, Army Col. Stephen Henley, has ordered lawyers to advise him by Jan. 4 whether the Pentagon can apply the death penalty without a jury trial.