9/11 Architect Tells Court He Hopes for Martyrdom

Army Maj. Jon Jackson, a military lawyer for Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, said late in the afternoon that his client was subjected to "intimidation by the co-accused" as part of their courtroom conversations. Defense attorneys said they were shocked that the court would allow alleged co-conspirators -- especially ones held in isolation for years -- to so openly converse on the first day they were all brought together.

Kohlmann accepted the requests of Mohammed, bin Attash and Ammar al-Baluchi to represent themselves, but said he would take more time to consider the requests from Binalshibh and Hawsawi. Binalshibh apparently is taking medication, and his lawyers argued that he could not make the decision on his own.

Kohlmann did not accept pleas Thursday.

Mohammed often sat back in his chair and removed his black-rimmed glasses to flip through documents, contemplative, sometimes turning his back to the judge and smiling at the other detainees. Mohammed, who said he was 43, looked much older and slimmer than the disheveled, mustachioed captive in the photo that was widely distributed after his arrest in 2003. When shown a courtroom sketch of himself, he objected to the image and wanted his nose to be redrawn smaller.

Mohammed indicated that he had been told not to say anything about the countries where he had been detained by the CIA before his transfer to Guantanamo in September 2006, or about the details of what he called his "torturing."

All five defendants appeared animated and engaged, at times answering questions in English, although some requested interpreters. Binalshibh, wearing a black skull cap and a dark, full beard, smiled and several times conveyed messages from Mohammed to the back rows, where Baluchi (whose formal name is Ali Abdul Aziz Ali) and Hawsawi sat.

The detainees were brought into the courtroom from a row of five tiny, cream-colored holding cells, 40 paces down a wide concrete walk surrounded by black mesh netting and enormous coils of concertina wire. A set of heavy, black double doors gives way to the 4,800-square-foot, gray-carpeted courtroom, its white walls bare except for the armed services' medallions and a large American flag affixed behind the judge's bench.

Military officials escorted nearly 60 members of the domestic and international media to Guantanamo for the hearing this week, and as many as 29 were allowed to watch from behind a plexiglass window in an observation room at the back of the courtroom. But the victims of the defendants' alleged conspiracy, and their relatives, were notably absent from the proceedings. They were given no option to view or attend the hearings.

"That was a mistake," Hartmann said. "We'll make sure that doesn't happen again."

Carie Lemack, co-founder of Families of September 11, said she repeatedly told Defense Department and Justice Department officials that members of her group wanted to attend the arraignments.

"We consider this the murder trial of our loved ones," said Lemack, whose mother was on American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. ". . . I don't know why 9/11 victims should be treated any differently than any other victims."

Also absent from the courtroom was Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda's fugitive leader, who is mentioned 18 times in the 23-page conspiracy charge sheets but has evaded global efforts to capture or kill him. Mohammed, who has long been considered the architect of the attacks, has remained the government's top target for prosecution among the hundreds of alleged terrorists captured overseas.