Lawyer: 9/11 defendants want platform for views

By KAREN MATTHEWS Associated Press Writer

The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and why they did it."

The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month that Ali and four other men accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. will face a civilian federal trial just blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, is a nephew of professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Mohammed, Ali and the others will explain "their assessment of American foreign policy," Fenstermaker said.

"Their assessment is negative," he said.

Fenstermaker met with Ali last week at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He has not spoken with the others but said the men have discussed the trial among themselves.

Fenstermaker was first quoted in The New York Times in Sunday's editions.

Critics of Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the men in a New York City civilian courthouse have warned that the trial would provide the defendants with a propaganda platform.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said Sunday that while the men may attempt to use the trial to express their views, "we have full confidence in the ability of the courts and in particular the federal judge who may preside over the trial to ensure that the proceeding is conducted appropriately and with minimal disruption, as federal courts have done in the past."

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Holder for hours about his decision to send the five 9/11 suspects to New York for trial.

Critics of Holder's decision — mostly Republicans — argued the trial will give Mohammed and his co-defendants a world stage to spout hateful rhetoric. Holder said such concerns are misplaced, and any pronouncements by the suspects would only make them look worse.

"I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is," Holder told the committee. "I'm not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial — and no one else needs to be, either."

The attorney general said he does not believe holding the trial in New York — at a federal courthouse that has seen a number of high-profile terrorism trials in recent decades — will increase the risk of terror attacks there.

**This combination of undated photos shows, from left: Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Waleed bin Attash, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ramzi Binalshibh. The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009. (AP Photos)

**FILE - This July 2009 photo downloaded from the Arabic language web site www.muslm.net shows a man identified by the site as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, in detention at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. New York juries are often loath to impose the death penalty, even for radical terrorists. Now comes the ultimate exception: Professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. (AP Photo/www.muslm.net)

© 2009 Associated Press. Displayed by permission. All rights reserved.
You may forward this article or get additional permissions by typing http://license.icopyright.net/3.5721?icx_id=D9C4RM3O0 into any web browser. Press Association and Associated Press logos are registered trademarks of Press Association . The iCopyright logo is a registered trademark of iCopyright, Inc.

9/11 DO YOU REMEMBER HOW YOU FELT THAT SOMBER DAY?

In light of the recent position of this new administration regarding the investigation of the CIA, it is my humble opinion that it is not a coincidence that there have not been any further attacks on American soil since 9/11.

Today, I started out my morning, much like that fateful day 8 years ago. I still vividly remember exactly where I was standing and what I was doing when the first plane hit the tower. It was 7:46 am and I was preparing for work. I could hear the tv from the room I was in. The minute I heard about the plane flying into the World Trade Center, I knew it wasn't an accident.

Words will never be able to fully express the emotions that consumed me. After re-living those emotions this morning and for the last 7 September 11ths, every year I find myself consumed by a profound sadness after seeing those images and now, for the first time I am overwhelmed with the emotion of outrage. Outrage because this administration has positioned itself as Anti-CIA, Pro Terrorist and, in my opinion, Anti-American.

For goodness sake, they can't even call it a war on terrorism. They are now "overseas contingent operations". They feel that the same people that decapitate people on video and show it to the world, fly airplanes into buildings massacring innocent men, women and children; train children to become suicide bombers, and force innocent people to jump from the 110Th floor of a building because that is a better choice than burning to death, deserve the same rights and priviledges as someone that commits any crime. I don't think that the tactics used by the CIA to get information from captured terrorists should be elevated to the level of torture. I applaud these men and women for putting their lives on the line and keeping us safe for the last 8 years.

I seriously wonder what side this administration is on. Do they really hate the Bush Administration that much? Is this just a chance to "flex their muscles" and show us they will do ANYTHING to try to bring bogus charges against the Bush Administration? If they do anything that puts the CIA agents in harms way, I feel that Eric Holder, President Obama and any of the other henchmen in office that perpetrate this act of treason, should be put on trial as enemy combatants committing treason against the United States of America.

God Bless the families that were directly affected by the events of 9/11 as well as all of the brave service men and women that have given their lives and limbs for the freedoms we hold so dear.

DO YOU REMEMBER HOW YOU FELT THAT SOMBER DAY? YOU NEED TO ALWAYS REMEMBER THAT GUT WRENCHING FEELING TO REMIND YOURSELF WHAT KIND OF ENEMY WE ARE FIGHTING....... I REMEMBER.............

Michele