Is Alleged Architect Of 9/11 At Guantanamo?

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Is alleged architect of 9/11 at Guantánamo?

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/13999832.htm

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com
3/2/2006

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- Is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, being held here?

A captive facing conspiracy charges before a Military Commission raised the possibility during pre-trial hearings here Wednesday when, during questioning of a judge's competence to serve, the captive asked to be moved to a cell alongside the man known by his acronym "KSM."

Earlier, Yemeni captive Ali Hamza al Bahlul, 37, had repeatedly told the judge, Army Col. Peter Brownback, that having a U.S. Army major as his defense lawyer couldn't get him a fair trial.

Americans, he argued, are too emotionally damaged by the Twin Towers and Pentagon attacks to fairly judge their adversary.

Bahlul did not explain, however, whether he actually knew "KSM," and why he thought Mohammed was among the nearly 500 captives from dozens of countries being kept in six separate camps along the Caribbean.

"I am from al Qaeda, but I have no relationship with the events of Sept. 11," he declared in Arabic.

The United States has confirmed capture of the so-called operations chief, in Pakistan in March 2003, but has never disclosed his whereabouts. A leaked image of Mohammed, apparently taken at the time of the 40-year-old Kuwaiti's capture, shows a disheveled man in a white T-shirt, in need of a shave and a haircut.

Published reports have described him as being held at "an undisclosed location," including aboard a ship at sea or at a so-called CIA black site, not in Army custody.

Either way, the United States has so far not chosen to charge Mohammed under President Bush's war-on-terror commissions formula for the first U.S. war crimes tribunals since World War II.

Army Maj. Jeffrey Weir, a prison spokesman, would neither confirm nor deny whether Mohammed was being held here.

The answer, he said, will be available Friday in a raft of paperwork being released by the Pentagon. The Defense Department had earlier blacked out captives' names on reports from their 2004-2005 status review hearings. A federal judge in New York gave the Bush administration until Friday to re-release the forms, with captives' names visible.

In his hearings this week, his third since he first faced charges in August 2004, Bahlul displayed knowledge about both current events and the evolution of commission processes presently underway for Guantánamo captives.

In one instance, he referred to fellow captive David Hicks' case, now stalled by a federal court, and said since Hicks had been able to secure an Australian legal advisor on his case wondered whether he might get a Yemeni advisor.

The slight Yemeni with shaved head and wispy mustache is charged with conspiracy to attack civilian targets and commit murder, and allegedly made al Qaeda recruiting videos, including one "glorifying" the USS Cole attack in 2000.

He allegedly also served as Osama bin Laden's bodyguard around the time of the 911 attacks, and, according to his charge sheet, unsuccessfully tried to arrange a satellite link as bin Laden fled Kandahar, Afghanistan, to watch news reports about the attack.

"Despite his efforts, al Bahlul was unable to obtain a satellite connection because of mountainous terrain," his charge sheet says.

Bahlul's case has presented some of the greatest challenges to the commission process itself, in part because he has refused the services of a series of Pentagon-assigned military defense lawyers -- and repeatedly sought to represent himself.

Pentagon officials ruled out self-representation, saying that as a captive he would not have access to secret evidence that might be used against him.

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The interesting thing about this, is that the Miami Herald reported on Professor Jones, and that they're referring to KSM as the "alleged" architect.

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Pentagon reveals Guantanamo names

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4771774.stm

The US defence department has released the names and nationalities of some of the inmates detained at its Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

However, the names do not appear as a simple list - they are buried within 6,000 pages of documents posted on the Pentagon's website.

They are transcripts of tribunals in which the 500 detainees were screened and their combat status assessed.

The transcripts have been released before, but with the names blacked out.

The files have been released as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the Associated Press.

It is the first time most of the names have been made public.

'Ghost' detainees
Detainees were screened at the Combatant Status Review Tribunals with a view to categorising them as "enemy combatants".

The BBC's Pentagon correspondent, Adam Brookes, says it will take days, or even weeks, for the documents to be read and analysed, but soon much more will be learned not only about who the detainees are, but also the circumstances of their capture and detention.

However, our correspondent says that only inmates who underwent Combatant Status Review Tribunals have been named.

It is quite possible that there are other prisoners, known as "ghost" detainees, in Guantanamo, he adds.

Force feeding
In a separate development, a Kuwaiti man being held at Guantanamo Bay gave a rare interview to the BBC in which he described the force-feeding of hunger strikers at the camp, something which he says amounts to torture.

Answering the questions from the BBC's Today Programme through his lawyer, Fawzi al-Odah said hunger strikers were strapped to a chair and force-fed through a tube three times a day.

"First they took my comfort items away from me. You know, my blanket, my towel, my long pants, then my shoes. I was put in isolation for 10 days.

"They came in and read out an order. It said if you refuse to eat, we will put you on the chair [for force feeding]."

Mr Odah, who has been held at the base since 2002, was one of 84 inmates at Guantanamo who went on hunger strike in December. Just four are still refusing food.

He told how detainees were given "formulas" to force them to empty their bowels and were strapped to a metal chair three times a day, where a tube was inserted to administer food.

"One guy, a Saudi, told me that he had once been tortured in Saudi Arabia and that this metal chair treatment was worse than any torture he had ever endured or could imagine," Mr Odah said.

The UN Human Rights Commission said recently that it regarded force-feeding at Guantanamo as a form of torture, a charge the US firmly has repeatedly denied.