The Pentagon's "Convening Authority" for Military Commissions has issued capital murder charges against five detainees at Guantánamo Bay in connection with the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Khalid Sheik Mohammed is charged with being the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks by proposing the concept to Osama bin Laden as early as 1996, obtaining approval and funding for the attacks from bin Laden, overseeing the operation, and training the hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He was born in Pakistan's Baluchistan province and raised in Kuwait.
Waleed bin Attash, better known as Khallad, is alleged to have administered an al Qaeda training camp in Logar, Afghanistan where two of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were trained. Bin Attash is an alleged al Qaeda operative, believed to have been bin Laden's bodyguard. Authorities say bin Laden selected him as a Sept. 11 hijacker but he was prevented from participating when he was arrested and briefly detained in Yemen in early 2001.
Ramzi Bin al Shibh, a Yemeni, is alleged to have helped find flight schools for the hijackers, help them enter the United States, and assist with the financing for the operation. He allegedly was selected to be one of the hijackers and made a ''martyr video'' in preparation for the operation, but was unable to get a U.S. visa and could not enter the United States. He also is believed to be a lead operative for a foiled plot to crash aircraft into London's Heathrow Airport.
Ammar al Baluchi, also known as Ali Abd al Aziz Ali, is alleged to have sent approximately $120,000 to the hijackers for their expenses and flight training, and helped nine of the hijackers travel to the United States. He is believed to have served as a key lieutenant to Khalid Sheik Mohammed in Pakistan. He was born in Baluchistan and raised in Kuwait.
Mustafa Ahmad al Hawsawi, a Saudi, is alleged to have helped the hijackers with money, western clothing, traveler's checks and credit cards. Hawsawi served as a witness in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial, saying he had seen Moussaoui at an al Qaeda guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in the first half of 2001, but was never introduced to him nor conducted operations with him.
Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann will serve as the trial judge. A New Jersey native, he is a 1980 graduate of the Naval Academy and a former combat engineer. He got his law degree in 1987 from the Delaware School of Law at Widener University. He first became a military judge in 1998. Currently the chief Military Commissions judge, he also served in an earlier earlier effort to stage the first U.S. war crimes tribunals since World War II -- until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that version unconstitutional.
Charges include conspiracy and a number of separate offenses, including murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, terrorism and providing material support for terrorism. Mohammed, bin Attash, Bin al Shibh and Aziz Ali are also charged specifically with hijacking the four aircraft -- the two that hit the World Trade Center towers in New York, the one that hit the Pentagon and the one that crashed in the western Pennsylvania countryside. According to the Pentagon, the attacks resulted in the death of 2,973 people, including eight children. The charges describe 169 "overt acts" that led to the 9/11 attacks
