9/11 plotters ask to plead guilty
- 00:01:06
- ITN
9/11 plotters ask to plead guilty
Five men accused of planning the 9/11 attacks have said they want to plead guilty. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-styled mastermind of the terror attacks and four co-defendants said they wanted to confess in a note to a military judge at Guantanamo Bay. The judge, Colonel Steven Henley, said he would question them "from A to Z" to ensure they understood the impact of their decision, which could see them face the death penalty. He read from the defendants' note, which began: "We, all five, have reached an agreement to request from the commission an immediate hearing session in order to announce our confessions ... with our earnest desire in this regard without being under any kind of pressure, threat, intimidations or promise from any party." The note said all five wish to withdraw all pending motions filed by their military-appointed lawyers, whom they do not trust and have tried to fire. "I am not trusting any Americans," Mohammed said in English during an appearance before the judge. He and several co-defendants said in an earlier hearing that they welcomed martyrdom. Mohammed, a Pakistani, and four others - Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali - were charged earlier this year with conspiring with al-Qaeda to kill civilians. They face 2,973 counts of murder, one for each person killed when al Qaeda militants crashed hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.
ITN | December 8, 2008
