SEPT 11 SUSPECT GRILLS US JUDGE ON RELIGION

REUTERS
GUANTANAMO BAY (Cuba): Accused Sept 11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed asked a US military judge whether he belonged to an "extremist" religious group, at an unusual Guantanamo war-crimes court hearing on Tuesday.

Mohammed, acting as his own attorney, asked Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann about his views on religion and torture at a pre-trial hearing of five accused Sept. 11 co-conspirators.

"We are well-known as extremists and fanatics, and there are also Christians and Jews that are very extremist," Mohammed told the judge.

"If you, for example, were part of Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson's groups, then you would not at all be impartial towards us," he said, referring to US evangelical Christian leaders who have denounced Islam as violent.

Kohlmann replied that he did not belong to a congregation. "When I have attended church, I was a member of various Lutheran churches and Episcopal churches, and I have not attended any of them for a long time because I have moved so often," the judge said.

Kohlmann dismissed as "inaccurate," an assertion by co-defendant Ramzi Binalshibh that he had a "Jewish name."

Kohlmann was also asked about how he followed news coverage on the day of the attacks and replied that his memory was imprecise. He also said he had no opinion on the facts of the Sept 11 incident, which triggered US President George W. Bush's "war on terror."

Binalshibh, Mohammed and three other defendants -- Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali -- are charged with conspiring with Al Qaeda to kill civilians in the attacks.

The men face 2,973 counts of murder, one for each person killed when hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field. Prosecutors want to execute them if they are convicted.

Extensive exploratory questioning of a judge's qualifications and bias by the defense is unique to military courts, including the commissions set up by Congress to try suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo US Naval base.

Defence attorneys said they had not yet decided whether to ask Kohlmann to disqualify himself based on his answers.

Mohammed is one of three Al Qaeda suspects known to have been subjected to CIA waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning used in interrogation that human rights groups consider torture. He asked Kohlmann about a high-school seminar the judge conducted in 2005 on interrogation and torture, and about his views on waterboarding.

Kohlmann said he had given two articles to the class at his daughter's high school, discussing the pros and cons of harsh interrogation techniques in circumstances such as when a suspect knows of an imminent attack. "I set out the scenarios ... to try to show it's a complex question," he said.

Binalshibh was absent from Monday's session, but appeared on Tuesday after his co-defendants urged him in letters to appear rather than be brought in by force under the judge's order.

Binalshibh appeared relaxed and unrestrained at the hearing, and chatted with co-defendants.
Kohlmann put a firm stamp on court proceedings.

He ruled out a late start to accommodate the Ramadan fasting schedule of the five Muslim defendants, and brushed off a request to end the day early for Ramadan. He denied Mohammed's request that he order some women participants to dress more modestly.

And after rejecting one request by the lead prosecutor for a bathroom break, Kohlmann relented 3 1/2 hours into the morning session, with an admonition that court participants should watch their fluid intake. "You all should be able to go as long as me without having to step out," he said.