“An effort to restart the… pretrial hearings abruptly ended in less than ten minutes Monday after two accused terrorists spoke out of turn in court, asking whether they could represent themselves in place of their Pentagon-paid death penalty defenders,” The Herald reported on Monday.
Defendants Walid Bin Attash and Ramzi bin al Shibh have been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility site since 2006, on charges that include terrorism and nearly 3,000 counts of murder in connection with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
The trial has been stalled for nearly 18 months following accusations from Bin al Shibh’s lawyer that the FBI was investigating the legal team representing the two alleged terrorists, creating possible conflict of interests.
The contents of the report were scheduled to be unsealed at the Monday hearing.
Attash and al Shibh are two of five detainees being tried for the death penalty by military tribunal. Only the lead defendant, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has submitted a plea to the court, where he claimed responsibility for orchestrating the September 11 terrorist attacks.
