According to the Washington Post, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused orchestrator of the 9/11 attacks, and four more men did their best to protest their arraignment in military court on May 5. The trial for Mohammed, who is being tried along with Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi, is being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, but the men would not participate in protest to the torture they reportedly endured while imprisoned.
The Washington Post reports:
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The normally loquacious Mohammed refused to speak publicly throughout Saturday’s hearing, a stance that was largely adopted by all the other defendants, who tend to follow his lead. Mohammed sat at the top defense table in the spacious courtroom, and throughout the hearing he whispered messages to his comrades, and they chatted and joked with one another during a short recess.
During the hearing, Mohammed, a 47-year-old Pakistani, often kept his chin in his chest, and refused to speak to the military judge, Army Col. James Pohl, about whether he wanted to keep his military and civilian counsel or represent himself. The others followed suit.
Mohammed’s civilian attorney, David Nevin, said the reason his client was not participating was because of the “torture that was imposed on him.”
After their capture, each of the men were held at secret CIA prisons overseas before being transferred in September 2006 to Guantanamo Bay, where they are held at a small, high-security facility known as Camp 7. Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times in the first month after his capture in March 2003, according to government reports.
Read more at the Washington Post.
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