The feds want a Manhattan federal judge to bar the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks from testifying at the terror trial of Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law.
Prosecutors in legal papers filed Monday asked Judge Lewis Kaplan to disallow video testimony from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, saying the legal team for bin Laden’s son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith waited too long to request Mohammed’s testimony — and that the motion is a simply “waste of time.”
“Mohammed has flatly and definitively refused to testify,” the letter claims. However, Abu Ghaith’s lawyers say they believe they can get Mohammed to testify. The matter is expected to be discussed during a court hearing Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Mohammed in a statement filed late Sunday claimed Abu Ghaith was nothing more than a talking head, who had no role in 9/11.
“[Abu Ghaith] was not a military man and had nothing to do with military operations,” Mohammed explained in court papers filed by Abu Ghaith’s defense.
Mohammed, rotting in US military custody in Guantánamo Bay, said Abu Ghaith was the terror group’s primary spokesman because he was “an eloquent, spellbinding speaker.”