September 11 pre-trial begins with calm at Guantanamo Bay
Alleged September 11 conspirators sit quietly, co-operate with lawyers and answer the judge
There were no rants this time, no ignoring the judge or getting out of their seats to pray - just one scornful remark from the professed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, as long- delayed efforts to try him and four alleged co-conspirators resumed at Guantanamo Bay.
The start of a week-long pre-trial hearing for the five detainees began on Monday. It was a sharply different atmosphere as Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants returned to court at the US base in Cuba for the first time since their arraignment in May, when their concerted effort to disrupt the proceedings turned into an unruly, 13-hour spectacle.
This time, the defendants sat quietly, co-operated with their lawyers and responded to the judge when asked. And they won a small victory: The judge granted a defence request to allow the five men to skip the rest of the week's hearing if they choose.
Asked if he understood the implications of not attending court while hearings go on without him, Mohammed made his only statement of the day: "Yes, but I don't think there is any justice in this court."
The issue was only one of a handful to be resolved Monday in a hearing on about two dozen motions before the formal trial, which is at least a year away. Most of the day was taken up by the debate over whether defendants must attend all proceedings under the rules of the special tribunals for wartime offences known as military commissions.
Lawyers for two of the defendants said the threat to forcibly remove them from their cells and bring them to court is traumatic for men who were subjected to harsh interrogations that they say amounted to torture.
"Our clients may believe that ... 'I don't want to be subjected to this procedure that transports me here, brings up memories, brings up emotions of things that happened to me'," said Jim Harrington, who represents Ramzi bin al-Shaibah, accused of helping to provide support to the hijackers who crashed planes into the World Trade Centre, Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001.