Five 9/11 Suspects Offer to Confess

The five wrote the note Nov. 4 after meeting here that day to plot legal strategy, the court heard. The men, who are being held at a secret facility on the military base here, were allowed to meet together for at least 27 hours in recent weeks, a prosecutor said.

Outside the courtroom, the defendants' civilian attorneys, who were organized by the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, said they had considered walking out on the proceeding if the judge accepted guilty pleas. "This show trial is nothing more than an effort to blackmail" Obama and limit his options, said Tom Durkin, a civilian attorney for Binalshibh.

Prosecutors rejected any suggestion that there was a politically motivated rush to justice.

"There are some decisions that are unique to the accused; the first of them is how he pleads," said Army Col. Lawrence Morris, chief military prosecutor. "The government has nothing to do with that decision."

Attending the Guantanamo Bay proceedings for the first time were relatives of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. The Defense Department chose the relatives of five victims by lottery and arranged for them to travel to the U.S. naval base on the eastern tip of Cuba, a Pentagon spokesman said. "It's clear to me they know what they did and they are willing and want to plead guilty," said Hamilton Peterson of Bethesda, who lost his father and stepmother on United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. "I think [Obama] will come to the realization that this is a very appropriate and fair venue."

The families were divided on the death penalty. Peterson and others said it was appropriate. But Alice Hoagland, who lost her son Mark Bingham on United Flight 93, said the defendants "do not deserve to be dealt with as martyrs."

Henley asked three of the defendants representing themselves -- Mohammed, Attash and Baluchi -- whether they were willing to enter guilty pleas. All said Monday morning that they were ready to do so.

Henley said he would not be able to accept pleas from Binalshibh and Hawsawi because the court has yet to hold hearings on whether they are mentally competent to represent themselves. An attorney for Binalshibh, Navy Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, objected to filing the Nov. 4 document on behalf of her client, saying he had "been permitted to go to this meeting" and others "without notice to me."

When the court resumed after a late-morning break, Mohammed, joined by Attash and Baluchi, changed tack and said he would not enter a plea until a decision was made on Binalshibh and Hawsawi. Lawyers had told them during the break that a plea could mean that they might not receive the death sentence and that it could cut off their two co-conspirators, according to a source familiar with the conversation.

"I want to postpone pleas until decision is made about the other brothers," Mohammed said.

The military court was told in an earlier hearing that Binalshibh, an alleged liaison between the hijackers and al-Qaeda's leadership, is being administered psychotropic drugs. And an attorney for Hawsawi, a Saudi and alleged financier of the attacks, said Monday that he had requested a mental competency hearing for his client.

Anticipating future pleas, Henley said Monday that he wanted a briefing from the prosecution and a defense response by Jan. 4 on whether he could accept guilty pleas in a death penalty case under the language of the military commissions statutes, which suggest that a death penalty could arise only from a decision by a military jury.