Confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his cohorts will be back in a high-security military courtroom tomorrow for a series of hearings leading up to their terrorism trial in Guantanamo Bay.
Lawyers for KSM and his four charged co-conspirators — Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Al Hawsawi — are expected to address their clients’ claims of torture while in US custody and argue that a top CIA official can be compelled to testify about the interrogations.
The terror plotter, who along with his accomplices is charged with 2,976 counts of murder and terrorism — one for each life lost on Sept. 11, 2001 — was waterboarded 183 times while in CIA custody, US officials have said.
But the government has classified details and put a strict gag order on discussions surrounding specifics.
Prosecutors say the gag order is necessary because the suspects were “exposed to classified sources, methods and activities” that could compromise national security.
Defense lawyers are asking the court to remove the gag order and run a transparent trial.The five men were arraigned in May in a circus-like, all-day hearing during which they mocked the proceedings — shouting out calls to prayer, reading magazines and standing.
They also want to compel witness testimony from Jose Rodriguez, the former head of the CIA Clandestine Service who oversaw the interrogations at secret prisons where the suspects were kept before being moved to Gitmo in 2006.
The hearing was originally scheduled for today but was pushed back by a day due to an Internet outage at the base that defense attorneys said impeded them from preparing for the ordeal, according to base officials.