Ramzi Binalshibh

5 charged in 9/11 attack resist Gitmo hearing

By BEN FOX, Associated Press

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks repeatedly declined to answer a judge's questions Saturday and his co-defendants knelt in prayer in what appeared to be a concerted protest against the military proceedings.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men appeared for the first time in more than three years for arraignment at a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, charged with 2,976 counts of murder for the 2001 attacks.

The hearing quickly bogged down before they could be arraigned. The men took off the earphones that provide Arabic translations and refused to answer any questions from the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, dramatically slowing a hearing that is heavy on military legal procedure.

At one point, two defendants got up and prayed alongside their defense tables under the watchful eyes of troops arrayed along the sides of the high-security courtroom on the U.S. base in Cuba.

CIA discovers Ramzi Binalshibh interrogation tapes under a desk

August 17, 2010
AP Exclusive: Terrorist interrogation tapes found
By ADAM GOLDMAN and MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writers

The CIA has videotapes, after all, of interrogations in a secret overseas prison of admitted 9/11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh.

Discovered in a box under a desk at the CIA, the tapes could reveal how foreign governments aided the United States in holding and interrogating suspects. And they could complicate U.S. efforts to prosecute Binalshibh, who has been described as one of the "key plot facilitators" in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Apparently the tapes do not show harsh treatment — unlike videos the agency destroyed of the questioning of other suspected terrorists.

CIA whisked detainees from Gitmo

http://www.sfexaminer.com/politics/ap/ap-exclusive-to-keep-program-secret-cia-whisked-911-figures-from-gitmo-before-court-...
CIA whisked detainees from Gitmo
By: MATT APUZZO and ADAM GOLDMAN
Associated Press
08/06/10 1:10 PM PDT

WASHINGTON — A white, unmarked Boeing 737 landed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before dawn on a CIA mission so secretive, many in the nation's war on terrorism were kept in the dark.

Four of the nation's most highly valued terrorist prisoners were aboard.

They arrived at Guantanamo on Sept. 24, 2003, years earlier than the U.S. has ever disclosed. Then, months later, they were just as quietly whisked away before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers.

The transfer allowed the U.S. to interrogate the detainees in CIA "black sites" for two more years without allowing them to speak with attorneys or human rights observers or challenge their detention in U.S. courts. Had they remained at the Guantanamo Bay prison for just three more months, they would have been afforded those rights.

Former Israeli soldier to determine if Bin al Shibh is sane

Defense seeks foreign-born experts for 9/11 case

By CAROL ROSENBERG

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- In seeking to examine whether accused 9/11 lieutenant Ramzi bin al Shibh is sane, Pentagon defense attorneys are turning to an Israeli-American and Cuban American exile as mental health experts.

The Pentagon's supervisor of the war court, Susan J. Crawford, has so far refused to fund one of the consultants, Ruben C. Gur. The other, Xavier Amador, has so far been banned from talking to bin al Shibh in the high-profile case that seeks the death penalty for five men accused as co-conspirators in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

So defense lawyers were seeking a court order for both in motions being argued at the military commissions on Thursday. No immediate ruling was expected.

Amador, a Cuban American clinical psychologist, has testified as an expert in the Unabomber and Zacarias Moussaoui cases. He immigrated to the United States in the early 1960s.

Gur, a psychologist, is a former Israeli soldier and leading expert in neuroimaging, the study of CT scans for signs of mental illness.

9/11 families excluded from Guantanamo hearing

Source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKNASU6040120080605

9/11 families excluded from Guantanamo hearing

Thu Jun 5, 2008 4:03am BST

By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - As the Guantanamo war crimes court prepared to arraign five prisoners on death penalty charges of orchestrating the September 11 attacks, a Pentagon official apologized on Wednesday for excluding victims' families from the hearing.

The U.S. military quietly invited one woman whose brother was an American Airlines pilot killed in the plane that crashed into the Pentagon in the 2001 attacks.

But the invitation to attend Thursday's arraignment at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba was rescinded when the New York Daily News revealed that lone invitee Debra Burlingame was an ardent defender of President George W. Bush who spoke in support of his administration at the Republican Party convention during his 2004 re-election campaign.

Relatives of other victims complained that the Guantanamo trials were being politicized and the Pentagon's legal adviser, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, acknowledged the matter was mishandled.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: I was behind 9/11, transcript says

Here is the PDF transcripts of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Faraj al-Libi and Ramzi Binalshibh (in that order):

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/03/14/transcript_ISN10024.pdf

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/03/14/transcript_ISN10017.pdf

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/03/14/transcript_ISN10013.pdf

Source of article (and link to CNN video of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed):

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/15/guantanamo.mohammed/index.html?section=cnn_latest

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: I was behind 9/11, transcript says

Story Highlights

• Transcript is from Saturday hearing at Guantanamo; released by Pentagon
• Mohammed: "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z"
• Transcript says he's responsible for other attacks, including Bali bombing
• Mohammed is among 14 prisoners identified by U.S. as "high value"

From Mike Mount
CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted responsibility for the 9/11 attacks and a catalog of other terrorist acts, according to an edited transcript of a tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Al-Qaida No. 3 says he planned 9/11

Here is the most recent news on this subject:

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070315/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_terrorist_confession

Published: Thursday, March 15, 2007

Al-Qaida No. 3 says he planned 9/11

By KATHERINE SHRADER, Associated Press Writer

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confirmed his notoriety as al-Qaida's most ambitious operational planner when, according to military transcripts, he confessed to planning and supporting 31 terrorist attacks, topped by 9/11, that killed thousands of innocent victims since the early 1990s.

The gruesome attacks range from the suicide hijackings of Sept. 11, 2001 — which killed nearly 3,000 — to a 2002 shooting on an island off Kuwait that killed a U.S. Marine.

Many plots, including a previously undisclosed plan to kill several former U.S. presidents, were never carried out or were foiled by international counterterror authorities.

Sept. 11 Plotter Asks Court for Lawyer, Trial

Sept. 11 Plotter Asks Court for Lawyer, Trial
Case Embodies Debate Over Habeas Rights

By Carol D. Leonnig and Julie Tate
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, October 26, 2006; A03

Ramzi Binalshibh, an admitted al-Qaeda planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, tried four times to join the terrorist hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 and has acknowledged his goal of killing as many Americans as possible.

Now the Yemeni man is seeking the help of the U.S. court system to address his complaint that he has been wrongfully imprisoned and treated unfairly by the U.S. government. He filed a legal challenge in federal court in Washington on Oct. 10, asserting his rights to contest his detention and requesting that a court-appointed lawyer represent him free of charge.

In so doing, Binalshibh brought to life the two arguments at the heart of the recent, furious debate over stripping such habeas corpus rights from so-called enemy combatants: the administration's position that alleged terrorists like him do not deserve access to U.S. courts, and his opponents' assertion that the American justice system is a model for the world precisely because it accords such basic rights to all.

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