Defending KSM, 'the most hated man in the world'

On three occasions over the last few weeks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described orchestrator of the Sept. 11 attacks, has sat with his legs shackled to a chair in a cramped, windowless briefing room at the Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Mohammed has probably spent most of the last five years in similar leg irons, fielding questions from American officials.

But now, for the first time, the man who has been sitting across from him is a potential ally, a Navy Reserve judge advocate general named Prescott L. Prince.

Prince was recently tapped to be Mohammed's lead defense lawyer for the military commission proceedings in which he is charged with murder in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people in the 2001 attacks.

In 10 hours of interviews, the two men have sized each other up, talking about themselves, the American justice system and the imminent arraignment of Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators, scheduled for June 5.

"I call him Mr. Mohammed," said Prince. "He calls me Mr. Prescott."

Prince is prohibited from disclosing details of what Mohammed told him in their conversations, but his description of their encounters offers a rare glimpse of a man whose persona has taken on monstrous proportions since his boastful media interview in 2002 about how he masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks. He was captured the following year in Pakistan, and the harsh interrogations he was subjected to while hidden away for three years in the CIA's secret detention program -- which many think constituted torture -- have sparked a furor over whether the Bush administration violated U.S. and international law.

Defense strategy

Prince's meetings with Mohammed also offer a glimpse into the defense strategy in the most high-profile American terrorism case in the post-Sept. 11 world, a trial sure to be followed by millions when it gets underway, probably many months from now.