Five Terrorists Face the Death Penalty

MIAMI - A Pentagon official has formally approved death penalty charges against reputed 9-11 architect Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other men for allegedly conspiring in the Sept. 11 attacks, according to their charge sheet obtained by The Miami Herald.

Military Commissions officials e-mailed the approved charge sheets to defense lawyers in Washington, D.C., after the close of business May 12 - confirming plans for the first war court prosecution seeking execution as the ultimate penalty.

That means that, absent defense requests for delay, the men could make their first appearance at the Guantanamo war court in June.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, declined to release the charges publicly, or discuss them. ”When we have something to announce, we will,” he said in an e-mail May 14.

How anyone, even if appointed, could in good faith represent the men responsible for the calculated slaughter of Americans is beyond me. And yet these men have lawyers. Why, I ask, are they entitled to constitutional rights? Answer: They’re not.

The best part is when they start talking about “water torture.” Considering my truck has a bumper sticker that says “I Support Waterboarding,” I think we all know where I stand on the issue. The whole thing is ridiculous.

According to a leaked copy of his November-December 2002 interrogation log, U.S. interrogators used sleep deprivation, left him naked or strapped to an intravenous drip without bathroom breaks to get him to confess. They also told him to bark like a dog.

Later, he got a lawyer, Gitanjali Gutierrez of the New York Center for Constitutional Rights, who said he recanted his confession.

On May 12, Gutierrez said the Crawford’s decision to strike her client’s name from the charge sheet was a vindication.

”The dismissal of Qahtani’s charges affirm that everything he said at Guantanamo was extracted through torture - or the threat of torture,” she said.

His treatment at the Pentagon’s war on terror detention center was “so well documented and unconscionable,” she said, “that he is unprosecutable and should be return to the custody of Saudi Arabia.”

Poor baby. Maybe next time they should let him ride on a jetliner on a collision course with a building. How about he gets to jump from a skyscraper? Oh, I know. Maybe he should be allowed to lay crushed under rubble for a few days.

Sorry, no sympathy here.

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