GOT HIS WISH: A drawing shows camo-clad Khalid Sheik Mohammed at yesterday’s tribunal. (
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The terrorist mastermind of the 9/11 attacks slinked into a courtroom yesterday wearing an American military vest, rubbing coarse salt in the wounds of families whose loved ones were killed in the worst attack on US soil.
With a judge’s blessing, al Qaeda bigwig Khalid Sheik Mohammed made a camouflage-cloaked grand entrance, arriving late to a pretrial hearing where seething 9/ll families stewed over his ranger vest.
“Hello there, you son of a bitch,” hissed Gordon Haberman of Wisconsin, whose 25-year-old daughter, Andrea, died in the north tower of the World Trade Center.
“You pr–k. That vest is American-issue.”
Haberman watched through thick glass separating the family members from the military tribunal hearing room as Mohammed strolled to his seat.
Mohammed was wearing the woodland-patterned, green, brown and black vest a day after military judge Col. James Pohl ruled he could dress in the soldier garb.
The vest, manufactured in China, is no longer worn by American soldiers, said a spokesman for the Long Island company that sells the item.
“We’re certainly disappointed to have him doing this,” said John Ottaviano, marketing chief of Rothco, the Ronkonkoma-based military clothing company whose tag is stitched inside Mohammed’s vest.
“It’s no different than if a serial killer was wearing a Brooks Brothers suit. I’m sure they wouldn’t be excited about that either.”
Mohammad, who skipped an earlier pre-trial session, returned to court after a military judge, green-lighted the defendant’s request to wear the camouflage vest.
But, as if the vest weren’t enough of an insult to the memory of the 9/11 victims and their families, Pohl took the unusual step of allowing Mohammed to spew an anti-American rant.
Making two callous references to the Sept. 11 attacks, Mohammed droned on for five minutes about national security, torture and military strategy.
“The government, at the end of the argument gave you an advice,” KSM, speaking Arabic, said through a translator.
“They told you any decision you’re going to issue you’re going to have to keep in mind the national security and to remember that there were 3,000 people killed on Sept 11.”
Family members were visibly disturbed. Some shifted in their seats and sighed.
When the judge said he would not allow future speeches, one family member was heard saying, “Good.”
Additional reporting by Frank Rosario