The Big Story: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed; ‘I wish to be a martyr’

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, appearing for the first time since his capture five years ago, said he would welcome becoming a “marytr” after a judge warned Thursday that he faces the death penalty for his confessed role as mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Wearing thick glasses and occasionally fussing with his turban or stroking his bushy gray beard, Mohammed seemed noticeably thinner than the image of a slovenly man with disheveled hair, an unshaven face and a T-shirt that the U.S. showed to the world after his capture in Pakistan.

Mohammed chanted verses from the Quran, rejected his attorneys, and told Judge Ralph Kohlmann, a Marine colonel, that he wants to represent himself at the war crimes trial.

The judge warned that he faces execution if convicted of organizing the attacks on America. But the former No. 3 leader of al-Qaida was insistent.

“Yes, this is what I wish, to be a martyr for a long time,” Mohammed declared. “I will, God willing, have this, by you.”

Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators each face death if convicted of war crimes including murder, conspiracy, attacking civilians and terrorism by hijacking planes to attack U.S. landmarks.

The murder charges involve the deaths of 2,973 people at the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania where passengers forced down their plane.

The arraignment begins the highest-profile test yet of the military’s tribunal system, which faces an uncertain future. The Supreme Court is to rule this month on the rights of Guantanamo prisoners, potentially delaying or halting the proceedings.

The trial also carries some strategic risk, and the military is trying to minimize the chance that classified information that would endanger Americans will come out, including delaying closed-circuit video of the proceedings by 20 seconds.

Mohammed seemed calm for the most part, but became upset and denounced the tribunals as unfair after the judge told defense lawyers to be quiet and “sit down!”

“It’s an inquisition. It’s not a trial,” Mohammed said, his voice rising. “After torturing they transfer us to inquisition land in Guantanamo.”

The five men, sitting at separate tables, spoke with each other in Arabic, appeared to pass notes to each other and at one point looked back and chuckled at reporters watching from behind a courtroom window.

None wore handcuffs, but the ankles of Ramzi Binalshibh, said to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and al-Qaida leaders, were shackled to the courtroom floor.

All appeared to be in robust health except for Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, who allegedly selected and trained some of the 19 hijackers. He looked thin and frail and sat on a pillow on his chair.

Calmly propping his glasses on his turban to peer at legal papers, Mohammed grinned at times and insisted that he would not be represented by any attorneys. He told the judge he “can only accept Sharia law.”

“There is no God but him, in him I have put my trust,” Mohammed chanted before Kohlmann asked him to stop.