http://articles.boston.com/2012-05-05/news/31588284_1_terror-attacks-hearing-strip-search
“Cheryl Bormann, a civilian attorney for bin Attash, appeared in a conservative Islamic outfit that left only her face uncovered and she asked the court to order other women present to wear “appropriate’’ clothing so that defendants do not have to avert their eyes “for fear of committing a sin under their faith.’’ Sweet cheryl belongs to http://www.facebook.com/GitmoWatch…rsk
9/11 defendants ignore judge at Guantanamo hearing
They knelt in prayer, ignored the judge and wouldn’t listen to Arabic translations as they confronted nearly 3,000 counts of murder. The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four co-defendants defiantly disrupted an arraignment that ended late Saturday in the opening act of the long-stalled effort to prosecute them in a military court.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted architect of the 2001 attacks that sent hijacked jetliners into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the four men accused of aiding the conspiracy put off entering pleas until a later date. Another hearing was set for June 12.
Saturday’s arraignment, which should have taken a couple of hours at most, lasted almost 13 hours, including meal and prayer breaks, as the men appeared to make a concerted effort to stall the hearing at the U.S. military base in Cuba . The charges they face include 2,976 counts of murder and terrorism, which carry the death penalty.
Earlier Saturday, Mohammed cast off his earphones providing Arabic translations of the proceeding and refused to answer Army Col. James Pohl’s questions or acknowledge he understood them. All five men refused to participate in the hearing; two passed around a copy of The Economist magazine and leafed through the articles.
Walid bin Attash was confined to a restraint chair when he came into court, released only after he promised to behave.
Ramzi Binalshibh began praying alongside his defense table, followed by Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, in the middle of the hearing; Binalshibh then launched into a tirade in which he compared a prison official to the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and declared that he was in danger.
“Maybe they will kill me and say I committed suicide,’’ he said in a mix of Arabic and broken English.
The detainees’ lawyers spent hours questioning the judge about his qualifications to hear the case and suggested their clients were being mistreated at the hearing, in a strategy that could pave the way for future appeals. Mohammed was subjected to a strip search and “inflammatory and unnecessary’’ treatment before court, said his attorney, David Nevin.
It was the defendants’ first appearance in more than three years after stalled efforts to try them for the terror attacks, in which hijackers steered four commercial jets into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a western Pennsylvania field.
The defendants’ behavior outraged 9/11 family members watching on closed-circuit video feeds around the United States at East Coast military bases. One viewer shouted, “C’mon, are you kidding me?’’ at the Fort Hamilton base in Brooklyn.
“They’re engaging in jihad in a courtroom,’’ said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles, was the pilot of the plane that flew into the Pentagon. She watched the proceeding from Brooklyn.
