Attorney: 9/11 trail could take years

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba -- The United States has started the prosecution of five Guantánamo Bay prisoners charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, but the trial won't be starting anytime soon, and both sides said yesterday that the case could take years.

Defense attorney James Connell said a tentative trial date of May 2013 is a "placeholder" until a true date can be set for the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind, and his co-defendants.

"It's going to take time," said the chief prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, who said he expects to battle a barrage of defense motions before the case goes to trial.

The defendants refused to respond to the judge or use the translation system. One man demanded a lengthy reading of the charges. Connell called the tactics "peaceful resistance to an unjust system."

The defendants' actions outraged relatives of the victims.

"It's not possible to untaint the evidence any more than it is to unring a bell," said Eddie Bracken of Staten Island, who was one of the relatives allowed to attend the hearing. He said it was important to him to see the people accused of killing his sister, Lucy Fishman, a Brooklyn mother of two who worked in the World Trade Center.

He said he came away impressed by the military justice system, and with the defense lawyers.

"If they had done this in another country it would have been a different story," Bracken said yesterday. "But this is America."

"They are complaining and our families can't complain," he said. "But it's our justice [system] and they have rights . . . It's hurtful because they have no remorse; I don't think they have any souls."

Mohammed has admitted to military authorities that he was responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks "from A to Z," and that he personally killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

With The Washington Post