GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, appeared inside Guantanamo Bay’s war court for the first time in more than 500 days on Tuesday following another massive delay in the case due to COVID-19.
Mohammed, dubbed “KSM” and described as “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks” in the 9/11 Commission Report, and some of his co-defendants were smiling and bantering with each other and their lawyers, with KSM briefly waving to the gallery.
KSM was a close ally of Osama bin Laden and was repeatedly waterboarded during numerous sessions while in U.S. custody. He is being tried alongside four co-defendants: his nephew, Ammar Baluchi, who sent money transfers to 9/11 hijackers inside the United States; alleged hijacking trainer Walid bin Attash; 9/11 facilitator Ramzi bin Shibh; and al Qaeda money man Mustafa Hawsawi.
Mohammed looked much different in court on Tuesday than he did in his infamous post-capture scowling picture in 2003 when he was overweight, mustached, and disheveled in a stretched T-shirt. He is trimmer now, and his gray beard has been dyed a reddish-orange. He was wearing a white robe, a Pashtun-style hat with a black wrap and a white cap, and white socks with sandals. He wore a dark mask when he was led into the courtroom by military guards but took it off when he sat down. He smiled and talked animatedly with his legal team and with his fellow al Qaeda members. He wasn’t wearing the camouflage vest that he often does in court.
During a recess when the spectator gallery had almost entirely emptied, KSM was chatting with his defense attorney, Gary Sowards, who previously represented Ted Kaczynski, dubbed the “Unabomber.” Mohammed then got up to leave the courtroom and waved to the Washington Examiner on his way out of the room. The terrorist’s expression was largely inscrutable behind the blue-and-white patterned scarf he had briefly donned across his face.
Jay Connell, a lawyer for KSM’s nephew, said of his client’s own smiles in court: “I’m sure he was smiling in court because he was happy to see us.
“The man’s been in lockdown for as long as everyone else has been in lockdown, and to see the people that he has on his legal team that he hadn’t seen in a long time, you know, is a cause for pleasure.”
Air Force Col. Matthew McCall took over as a judge on Tuesday, making him the fourth judge to preside over hearings in this iteration of the 9/11 case. He had previously served a short stint as a judge on the case in 2020 but never held any hearings.
The judge explained to the five defendants that they had the right to be present in court, that any decision they make not to be in court must be voluntary, that their appearance in court could be compelled, and that not being present could harm the presentation of their case, before asking if they understood. The only audible word from KSM the entire hearing — “yes” — was followed by the other four defendants also saying “yes,” either in English or Arabic.
Guantanamo Sept 11 TrialKSM’s nephew was wearing a gray cap, a white scarf, a gray vest, and a white tunic, while bin Attash wore a baggy camouflage jacket and a long orange-pink head wrap, and bin Shibh wore a camouflage jacket with a loose white head covering. Hawsawi, who sits on a pillow due to alleged injuries he received while in CIA custody, wore a white Saudi-style thobe, a white head cover, and a white mask, and he had prayer beads and a Koran.
The defendants are allowed to wear “culturally appropriate attire,” and the defense teams also successfully litigated to allow them to wear paramilitary-style garb.
On the defense side, nearly all of the female civilian lawyers and staff wore head coverings or a hijab, though the female military defense legal team did not. On the prosecution’s side, there were no lawyers in military uniform.
The video and audio of the proceedings are shown on a 40-second delay, with a red light turning on in the courtroom, the audio feed being cut, and white noise playing if the government or the judge believes classified information has been mentioned.
Two sheets of thick glass separate the gallery from the courtroom itself, with members of the media sitting on one side and family members of victims sitting on the other. About a dozen members of the press were in the gallery, while five victim family members watched the proceedings, including a woman whose brother was a New York City firefighter and who was accompanied by her husband, along with a husband and wife with their young son.
Cheryl Bormann, a defense attorney for bin Attash, told the judge she had concerns about being unmasked “due to failure to fully vaccinate the base,” and “we would ask that people remain masked to the greatest extent possible.”
The judge seemed to agree, saying that the microphones were picking up everyone’s voices well enough to be heard with masks on, and said, “Out of an abundance of caution, let’s keep our masks on.”
The dozens of defense and prosecution team members all kept their masks on, but KSM, bin Attash, Baluchi, and bin Shibh largely did not.
In the two decades since 19 al Qaeda terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center buildings, the Pentagon, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people, the five men believed to be responsible for the planning and execution of the plot have yet to stand trial. The key question of whether confessions obtained by the FBI after their CIA custody should be admissible remains unresolved.
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The defense teams are seeking to throw out confessions that the five men made to FBI “clean teams” at Guantanamo Bay after they had been subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” considered torture by many, at the CIA black sites.
Mohammed confessed to planning the 9/11 attacks in a March 2007 statement to the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, saying, “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z.
