Guantanamo court day for alleged 9/11 mastermind

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At an arraignment scheduled for Thursday, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was expected to make his first public appearance since being captured in Pakistan in 2003, held in CIA custody at secret sites and transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Tom Hartmann, a top tribunal official, told dozens of journalists late Wednesday he expects defense lawyers will robustly argue points with prosecutors and Judge Ralph Kohlmann on behalf of their clients, who face the death penalty.

"Expect to see challenges tomorrow, and the intensity of the process," Hartmann said at a briefing in an abandoned aircraft hangar near the courthouse at this isolated U.S. Navy base.

Army Col. Steve David, chief defense counsel for the tribunals, said the military commissions which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in 2006 as unconstitutional before they were altered and resurrected months later are "fundamentally flawed."

"We will zealously identify and expose each and every" flaw, he said.

The tribunals have been mired in confusion over courtroom rules and dogged by delays.

Military commissions have been conducted since George Washington used them after the end of the Revolutionary War, but this is the first time the United States has used them during an ongoing conflict, Hartmann said.

Mohammed is represented by two officers from the Navy and the Air Force. Two civilian attorneys from Idaho, including one who defended a client accused in the white supremacist Ruby Ridge case, also represent the Pakistani.

Defense attorneys for the five detainees accused in the Sept. 11 attack that killed 2,973 people say the U.S. is rushing the case to trial to influence the presidential election. They recently asked Kohlmann to throw out the case and remove Hartmann, who was accused of political meddling by a former chief prosecutor for the military commissions.

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