September 11 attacks trial could go on for many years

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba The US has finally started the prosecution of five Guantanamo Bay prisoners charged in the September 11 attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people, but the trial won't be starting anytime soon, and both sides said yesterday that the case could continue for years.

Defence lawyer James Connell said a tentative trial date of May 2013 is a "placeholder" until true date can be set for the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the self-described mastermind of the attacks, and his co-defendants.

"It's going to take time," said the chief prosecutor, Brig Gen Mark Martins, who said he expects to battle a barrage of defence motions before the case goes to trial. "I am getting ready for hundreds of motions because we want them to shoot everything they can shoot at us," he said in the wake of Saturday's arraignment, which dragged on for 13 hours due to stalling tactics by the defendants.

"Everyone is frustrated by the delay," Martins said. He noted that the civilian trial of convicted September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui took four years, and he pleaded guilty in 2006 before being sentenced to life in prison.

On Saturday, Mohammad and his co-defendants refused to respond to the judge or use the court's translation system and demanded a lengthy reading of the charges, tactics that Connell called "peaceful resistance to an unjust system."

The arraignment, Connell said, "demonstrates that this will be a long, hard-fought, but peaceful struggle against secrecy, torture and the misguided institution of the military commissions."

The defendants' actions outraged relatives of the victims. During the failed effort to prosecute the men, Mohammad mocked the tribunal and said he and his co-defendants would plead guilty and welcome execution.