9-11 suspect grills judge on religion

[Jenna]

Accused September 11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed asked a U.S. military judge at the Guantanamo war crimes court on Tuesday whether he was a member of an "extremist" American religious group.

Mohammed exercised the defendant's right to examine the judge's impartiality, asking Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann about his views on religion and torture at a pre-trial hearing of five accused September 11 co-conspirators.

"We are well-known as extremists and fanatics, and there are also Christians and Jews that are very extremist," Mohammed said. "If you, for example, were part of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson's groups, then you would not at all be impartial towards us," he said, referring to two U.S. evangelical Christian leaders.

Kohlmann replied that he did not belong to a congregation. "When I have attended church, I was a member of various Lutheran churches and Episcopal churches, and I have not attended any of them for a long time because I have moved so often," the judge said.

Kohlmann dismissed as "inaccurate," an assertion by co-defendant Ramzi Binalshibh that he had a "Jewish name."

Binalshibh, Mohammed and three other defendants -- Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali -- are charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to kill civilians in the attacks that prompted the Bush administration's global war on terrorism.

The men face 2,973 counts of murder, one for each person killed when the hijacked crashed into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. Prosecutors want to execute them if they are convicted.

Mohammed is one of three al Qaeda suspects known to have been subjected to CIA water boarding, a form of simulated drowning used in interrogation that human rights groups consider torture. He questioned Kohlmann on his conduct of a high-school seminar in 2005 on interrogation and torture.

Kohlmann said he had distributed two articles to the class at his daughter's high school, discussing the pros and cons of harsh interrogation techniques in circumstances such as when a suspect knows of an imminent attack. "I set out the scenarios ... to try to show it's a complex question," he said.

Binalshibh was absent from Monday's session, but appeared on Tuesday after his co-defendants urged him in a letter to appear and Kohlmann ordered that he be brought in by force if necessary. Binalshibh appeared relaxed and unrestrained at the hearing, and chatted with co-defendants.

Binalshibh has been seen by military psychiatrists seeking to determine his mental competence to act as his own attorney, and his military lawyer, Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, said he was taking an antischizophrenia medication.

Binalshibh said he did not trust his lawyer and was able to act on his own behalf, an issue Kohlmann put off pending the competency report. "She is acting against me," Binalshibh said. "I do not need her to respond for me."

By Randall Mikkelsen Reuters - Tuesday, September 23 08:31 pm

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba, Sept 23 -

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/200809...1-81f3b62.html

[pgg]

I think they should have been executed along time ago. But then again me and the ACLU never did get along

[2 Blue 4 U]

I think they should have been executed along time ago. But then again me and the ACLU never did get along

I second that!

[Xiphos]

I think they should have been executed along time ago. But then again me and the ACLU never did get along

Yep, and after the ACLU the terrorists should be executed too.

[Captain America]

I say give them a fair trial , a last meal of bacon and pork chops, execute them and buried them under a pig pen. I hope the ACLU understands my position on the issue. If not , F*%# 'em.

[Vendetta]

Man, that impressed me............now kill the bastards!!

[irishmick]

Well, considering the only reason he doesn't want his "court-appointed" lawyer is because it's a SHE named Suzanne, hopefully he does act as his own lawyer and screws it up.

[MacLean]

Fuck him if he misses the joke and the fact that it's on him.

[countybear]

Timothy McVey was given due process and pushed daisies faster...

Allow venue to any State court that was flown from, into, or over during the attacks of September 11th and allow the States to mete the justice. It will be handled more swiftly, more exactly, more efficiently, and perhaps even with better finality.

The feds always err when they try to reinvent the wheel.