cross posted from The Dream Antilles
Today the US Government tried unsuccessfully to move the Gitmo death penalty show trial of five “enemy combatants” toward a “trial” by arraigning the accused. Unfortunately for the US, today’s proceedings were a complete and utter joke show. And a complete embarrassment. And they were the previews of the upcoming Gitmo Joke Show “trial”
Reuters reports:
The accused al Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks stood in a U.S. military court on Thursday, sang a chant of praise to Allah and said he would welcome the death penalty.
“This is what I wish, to be martyred,” Pakistani captive Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the highest-ranking al Qaeda operative in U.S. custody, told the Guantanamo war crimes court.
/snip
As the judge questioned him about whether he was satisfied with the U.S. military lawyer appointed to defend him, Mohammed stood and began to sing in Arabic, cheerfully pausing to translate his own words into English.
“My shield is Allah most high,” he said, adding that his religion forbade him from accepting a lawyer from the United States and that he wanted to act as his own attorney.
Isn’t that just a super beginning to the arraignment before a death penalty “trial”? A “trial” that is supposed to lead to convictions and not acquittals? A “trial” that is supposed to result in five executions? But that’s not all. Not by a long shot.
[Mohammed] criticized the United States for fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, waging what he called “a crusader war,” and enacting “evil laws” including those authorizing same-sex marriages. /snip
The judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, tried to persuade the men to accept their military lawyers, but all refused.
Aziz Ali said he had barely been allowed to meet with his lawyer anyway and described him as “a signboard” hung up so the government could say, ‘Hey, we give these people lawyers.”‘
“All this is just a stage play,” he said.