GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA — When a visibly aged Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four alleged accomplices were reunited in a sterile military courtroom here Thursday, they laughed and chatted like old school chums and apparently rekindled their common cause: to defy their American enemies or die trying.
Strident and unremorseful over the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks they allegedly plotted, four of the men declared their eagerness to be executed.
Asked by the tribunal's chief judge, Marine Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann, if he recognized that he could be put to death if convicted, Mohammed said: "This is what I wish. I'm looking to be a martyr for a long time."
Sporting a bushy gray beard and elastic-banded spectacles and looking a generation older than his 43 years, the man known to his interrogators and captors as KSM occasionally stood to make random observations to the crowded courtroom or to adjust his white tunic and head covering. At times he looked indifferent to the life-or-death issues around him.
Alleged Al Qaeda training camp steward Walid bin Attash, a boyish-looking 30-year-old, had a question for Kohlmann. "Will we be buried at Guantanamo or will our bodies be returned to our countries?" he asked dispassionately.
Ramzi Binalshibh, believed to have coordinated a Hamburg, Germany, sleeper cell while three of the four Sept. 11 pilots waited for their orders to hijack U.S. airliners, reminded the court that he had tried to be part of the suicide mission but was denied a U.S. visa.
"I have been seeking martyrdom for five years!" Binalshibh said when warned that he could face death if convicted. "If this martyrdom happens today, I will welcome it. God is great! God is great! God is great!"
Binalshibh was the only defendant wearing shackles on his bulging ankles, a restraint Guantanamo authorities declined to explain. With the courtroom ringed by camouflage-clad guards and the entire structure surrounded by concentric rings of razor-wire-topped fences, the likelihood of escape appeared remote.
Ali Abdul Aziz Ali told Kohlmann he shared the views of the three before him who praised martyrdom and replied nonchalantly to Kohlmann's question as to whether he knew the ultimate penalty could be levied against him: "Naturally. I know."
Ali, who insisted to the court that his real name was Ammar al Baluchi, spoke in fluent English, mocking the judge's earnest assurances of his rights to legal assistance.
