The five defendants accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks refused to appear Tuesday at a Guantanamo hearing to lay the groundwork for their eventual trial.
The men on Monday attended the first of five days of pre-trial hearings, held in a courtroom at the remote US naval base in Cuba.
But early on Tuesday, self-proclaimed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants announced they would not attend the proceedings, without offering a reason for doing so, according to a military official.
Judge James Pohl has allowed the five to skip the preliminary hearings, but said they will be expected to attend their eventual trial, a date for which has not yet been set.
At Monday’s proceedings — the first court hearing attended by the men since February — Yemeni defendant Ramzi bin al-Shibh asked for permission to address the court, a request which was denied by Judge Pohl.
In the past, his co-defendant Mohammed has been known to deliver vehement speeches highly critical of the US government and its system of justice. The five defendants on Monday sat calmly however, with none of the outbursts that marked earlier court sessions.
The proceeding can be monitored by journalists and victims’ relatives via a delayed feed at a gallery adjoining the Guantanamo courtroom, a press room in Guantanamo and the Fort Meade military base outside Washington.
The men face the death penalty if convicted of the murder of nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001, in the worst ever attack on US soil.
The hearings come amid a widespread hunger strike that has lasted more than four months and involves nearly two-thirds of the 166 terror suspects still held at Guantanamo.
A total of 104 detainees are now refusing food, with 44 of them being force-fed through a nasal tube into the esophagus, according to US officials.
The hunger strike is meant to protest the Guantanamo inmates’ indefinite detention at the facility, even though most have been cleared for release.
The Pentagon on Monday released the names of 46 “indefinite detainees” who are deemed too dangerous to transfer from the prison and who cannot be tried in court.
Rights groups have called on the Barack Obama administration to transfer out of the facility those detainees who have been cleared to leave.
September 11 defendants boycott Guantanamo hearing
