WASHINGTON — The Pentagon announced murder and war crimes charges against six suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States. Officials said yesterday the United States will seek the death penalty.
The six suspects include the alleged mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. They are being held at the US military detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and would be tried in the military tribunal system there.
According to a transcript of a Guantanamo detention hearing, Mohammed confessed to plotting 9/11 as well as to a host of other crimes. These include the 1993 World Trade Center attack and shoe bomber Richard Reid's plot to blow up a trans-Atlantic airliner in December 2001.
Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday that the charges include conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war and material support for terrorism.
All six have been charged with conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and material support of terrorism, said the general who is serving as legal adviser to the military commissions trying the detainees. Four of the suspects will also be charged with hijacking, he said. The 169 charges allege a "long-term, highly sophisticated plan by Al-Qaeda to attack the United States of America," said Brig. Gen. Hartmann, during a press briefing at the Pentagon yesterday.
All six suspects are accused of helping plan the Sept. 11 attacks in which hijackers flew two jets into the World Trade Center in New York and another jet into the Pentagon in Washington. Another hijacked plane crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
"There will be no secret trials. We will make every effort to make everything open," said Hartmann, the legal adviser to the US military tribunal system.
The exception will be when classified information is presented that could compromise national security, he said.
The Bush Administration recently acknowledged that interrogators used waterboarding, which simulates drowning, on Mohammed and two other detainees - and said investigators obtained vital information using the technique.
Critics allege waterboarding amounts to torture. Hartmann said it is up to the military judge to decide what evidence could be used.
Asked what impact that will have on the case, Hartmann said it will be up to the military judge to determine what evidence is allowed.
Prosecutors have been working for years to assemble the case against suspects in the attacks that prompted the Bush administration to launch its global war on terror.
The other five men being charged are: Mohammed Al-Qahtani, the man officials have labeled the 20th hijacker; Ramzi Binalshibh, said to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and leaders of Al Qaeda; Ali Abd Al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar Al-Baluchi, a nephew of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been identified as Mohammed's lieutenant for the 2001 operation; Al-Baluchi's assistant, Mustafa Ahmad Al-Hawsawi; and Waleed bin Attash, a detainee known as Khallad, who investigators say selected and trained some of the hijackers.
The United States has faced harsh international criticism for its detention facility at Guantanamo, where terror suspects have been held for years since the 2001 attacks, most without charge.
