peregrinate crop: Gitmo hearings set to begin for alleged 9/11 plotters

Associated Press

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, is seen shortly after his capture in Pakistan in this photo taken on March 1, 2003.

By NBC News staff and wire reports

The alleged plotters behind the September 11 terrorist attacks are set to appear before a U.S. military judge Monday in Guantanamo Bay as part of a week of pretrial hearings.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of five men accused of orchestrating the 2001 terror attacks that killed 2,976 people in the U.S., will be back in court after several delays. With him will be four other confessed al-Qaida co-conspirators, including Mohammed?s Pakistani nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa Al Hawsawi, a Saudi and Walid Bin Attash and Ramzi Binalshibh, two men from Yemen.

The men are charged with conspiring with al-Qaida, attacking civilians and civilian targets, murder in violation of the laws of war, destruction of property, hijacking and terrorism. All five could face the death penalty if convicted.

The families of people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks have been invited to military installations in New Jersey,?Massachusetts, Maryland and New York City?to watch the pretrial hearings?on closed-circuit television, NBCNewYork.com reported.

Delayed by months of scheduling conflicts, religious observances, a hurricane threat and an Internet outage, Judge Army Colonel James Pohl ruled on Oct. 5 there would be no further postponements to the trial.

Monday?s pretrial hearings are expected to focus on secrecy issues during the trial.

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Defense attorneys want to abolish a ?presumptive classification? process that treats any discussion of what happened to the defendants during their interrogation in CIA prisons before they were transferred to Guantanamo as a top secret.

Despite President Obama's vow to shut down Guantanamo Bay, the nation's most expensive prison is undergoing some costly new updates that would allow the facility to remain open for years. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports.

Judge Pohl will also hear requests from news organizations on limiting closed courtrooms for secret sessions and be asked to decide whether the U.S. Constitution governs tribunals held at the U.S. base in Cuba.

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A hearing in July was postponed to allow the defendants to observe the holy month of Ramadan. Hearings in August were delayed when an Internet outage left the lawyers unable to access their electronic legal documents. That hearing was later cancelled altogether as Tropical Storm Isaac approached. The storm caused no damage to the base.

A hearing scheduled for late September were also delayed because the work space for the defense lawyers were shut down due to a rat infestation and mold, which lawyers claimed were making them sick, Reuters reported.

There have been no hearings in the case since 2008 when the five men were arraigned on revised charges, according to Reuters.?