Top Terror Suspect, 'KSM' Sees Lawyer At Gitmo

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
April 26, 2008 By Michael Melia, Associated Press
A defense attorney met with suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed for the first time at Guantánamo Bay, but the Pentagon-appointed lawyer said he could not reveal details because of "unnecessarily broad" military restrictions.
The Navy lawyer, Capt. Prescott Prince, said he used the two-and-a-half-hour meeting Thursday to explain Mohammed's rights in his upcoming trial, but he still does not know whether his client will accept his help.
"This is the first time he's had an opportunity to meet someone who can honestly say he represents his well-being," Prescott said Friday by telephone "That is a lot for him to digest after having been incarcerated from his capture in 2003."
Prince said he could not relate anything Mohammed said, how he looked or the conditions of his confinement under an "unnecessarily broad" protective order that he was required to sign before the meeting. He said he was seeking clearance from the Pentagon to release some details.
A Pentagon spokesman did not comment.
A Pentagon prosecutor has recommended death penalty charges against Mohammed and five other prisoners at Guantánamo for their roles in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. An official is now deciding whether to approve a death penalty trial.
Mohammed, al Qaeda's No. 3 leader at the time of his capture in Pakistan, has been held apart from the general detainee population at Guantánamo in a hidden facility with more than a dozen other "high-value" detainees transferred from secret CIA custody in 2006.
He is one of three Guantánamo prisoners who the CIA says were subjected to particularly harsh interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, which creates the sensation of drowning.
Last year, Mohammed allegedly confessed to planning 31 terrorist attacks around the world at a hearing before a U.S. military panel in Guantánamo.
Prince, a member of the Naval reserves who is a Virginia criminal defense lawyer in his civilian life, was assigned to represent Mohammed earlier this month. He said he plans to visit Mohammed again in two weeks.
 
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