Hours before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, pretrial proceedings in the case against the five accused orchestrators started and ended on Friday with none of them present in the courtroom for the final public session of the week – while multiple defense teams raised formal objections against the judge continuing to preside over the military commission. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, had been present during public sessions of the proceedings on Tuesday and Wednesday this week, even taking the rare moment out of his detention cell to wave at reporters in the public gallery in the courtroom. An assistant staff judge advocate, identified only by a pseudonym “Pa,” testified to their absence and provided signatures acknowledging their “voluntary” decision not to attend.
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