Delay refused for alleged September 11 plotters

By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A U.S. military judge refused on Thursday to delay the June 5 arraignment of five Guantanamo prisoners who could face execution if convicted of plotting the September 11 attacks.

The ruling cleared the way to begin hearings in the first Guantanamo war crimes court case alleging a direct link to the hijacked plane attacks that triggered the Bush administration's war on terrorism.

Military defence lawyers said last week they could not adequately prepare by June because the Pentagon had not yet granted security clearances to some members of the defence teams nor provided a secure place for them to view secret intelligence documents.

Prosecutors said in their written reply that those issues had been resolved so "Let's go forward."

The judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, stuck with his original arraignment date in the case against alleged September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other prisoners charged with conspiring with al Qaeda to murder civilians.

The five also face 2,973 counts of murder, one for each person killed in 2001 when hijacked passenger planes crashed into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field.

Kohlmann's ruling was announced after a pretrial hearing for another accused al Qaeda conspirator at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. That defendant, Ibrahim al Qosi, was allowed a phone call with his family in Sudan on Thursday to ask their help finding him a lawyer to replace the U.S. military attorney he rejected.

Qosi said he did not want any military or civilian lawyer appointed by the U.S. government to defend him on charges of providing material support for terrorism and conspiring with al Qaeda.