Five al-Qaeda 9/11 detainees to face pretrial proceedings June 26-July 21
The pretrial hearings will be held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba.
WASHINGTON: The US Department of Defence (DOD) has announced June 26-July 21, 2023 as pretrial dates for five Middle Eastern and Pakistani men currently detained in Cuba in connection with their alleged roles in the 9/11 terror attacks.
The DOD, in a statement Monday (Apr 10), set the pretrial dates for Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarek Bin 'Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Ramzi Bin al Shibh, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.
“The proceedings will be conducted at the Expeditionary Legal Complex located in Naval Station Guantanamo Bay (NSGB) Cuba and transmitted to a closed-circuit television site at Ft. Meade Maryland,” said the DOD, inviting the media to cover the proceedings.
Pakistani Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) is an al-Qaeda operative and the self-professed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, claiming to have planned or helped to plan 30 other terrorist attacks or plots.
He is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, a Pakistani terrorist convicted of carrying out the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. KSM was captured by Pakistani authorities in 2003 and transferred to Guantanamo in 2006. In 2008, he and four co-defendants were charged on eight counts of capital murder.
Walid, a Yemeni, allegedly helped in the preparation of the 1998 East Africa Embassy bombings and the USS Cole bombing and acted as a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden, gaining himself the reputation of an "errand boy". He has been formally charged with selecting and helping to train several of the hijackers of the 9/11 attacks.
Ali, a Pakistani, allegedly ordered flight simulation and training videos and transferred large sums of money to the 9/11 hijackers in the US. Although Ali was reportedly arrested and transferred to US custody in April of 2003, he was not transferred to Guantanamo until September 2006.
Yemeni Ramzi allegedly originally intended to be the fourth hijacker-pilot in the 9/11 attacks, but played the role of facilitator when he was unable to obtain a US visa. Ramzi was captured by Pakistani authorities in 2002 and transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.
Mustafa, originally from Saudi Arabia, allegedly helped research flight schools for the 9/11 terrorist attacks and administered bank accounts for several of the hijackers.