The "self-confessed" mastermind of the September 11 attacks is among six Guantanamo detainees charged with murder and conspiracy by the Pentagon. Watch: US Defence Department spokesman announces the move Profile: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Bin Laden's ideas man Uncertain World: The threats that face our globe Prosecutors said they would seek the death penalty for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five alleged conspirators accused of assisting the Pakistani al-Qa'eda operative in killing almost 3,000 people when hijacked planes were flown into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in 2001. The charges represent a milestone in America's "war on terror" and follow years of legal wrangling and controversy surrounding the detention of suspects without charge. Brig Gen Thomas Hartmann, a legal adviser to the head of the Pentagon's Office of Military Commissions, said the charges alleged a "long-term, highly sophisticated plan by al-Qa'eda to attack the US". He said there would be "no secret trials" and that they would be "as completely open as possible". Officials plan to hold the trial in a specially constructed court at the prison on Cuba that will allow lawyers and journalists and some others to be present, but leave relatives of September 11 victims and others to watch the trial through closed-circuit broadcasts. advertisement The charges are the first for Guantanamo inmates directly related to the 2001 attacks and will be heard by a controversial military tribunal system that was introduced in 2006 after the first system was ruled illegal by the US Supreme Court. So far only one detainee, the Australian David Hicks, has been convicted by the military commission, under a plea bargain on charges of aiding terrorism that allowed him to return home. Zacarias Moussaoui, who claimed he was the 20th hijacker, was jailed for life in 2006 by a US criminal court after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges. The New York Times has reported that the others to be charged are: Mohammed al-Qahtani, the man officials have labelled the real 20th hijacker;
Ramzi Binalshibh, Osama bin Laden's chief spokesman said to have been the main intermediary between the hijackers and leaders of al-Qa'eda;
Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar al-Baluchi, a nephew of Mohammed who has reportedly been identified as his lieutenant for the 2001 operation;
Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, al-Baluchi's assistant;
Waleed bin Attash, a detainee known as Khallad, who investigators say selected and trained some of the hijackers. At a hearing last year to determine his status as a combatant, Mohammed issued an apparent full confession of his involvement in the 2001 attacks and almost every other major al-Qa'eda plot. Legal experts said his supposed willingness to take credit for terrorism could complicate the tribunal process. Others may sue the US government with torture claims. Al-Qahtani has already claimed through the Centre for Constitutional Rights in New York that has represented him that he was tortured by his military captors. "Although the government has more leeway than in a federal court, there will be significant evidentiary problems," said Mr Wittes. "With high profile trials you don't want any kind of pressure on the system but the military commissions are untried, untested and maybe unready." Despite the reforms necessitated by the Supreme Court, the commission system has been widely criticised for its rules on legal representation for suspects, hearings behind closed doors and past allegations of inmate abuse at Guantanamo Bay.
The Military Tribunal courtroom.
Military prosecutors at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp announced charges on Monday against six captives they claim were involved in the planning of the September 11 attacks. The men, each facing the death penalty, will be tried in a single group.

The move could cause legal problems, since the Bush Administration has admitted that at some of the confessions were given under torture. In 2006, a source in the Pentagon referred to several of the captives now facing prosecution as "unprosecutable" due to "the techniques" used to secure their confessions.

The administration confirmed last week that Khalid 
Sheikh Mohammed had been subjected to waterboarding - which it defines as an "Enhanced interrogation technique". The alleged planner of the September 11 attacks confessed to planning a number of other crimes. Included in his list of confessions were the failed shoe-bombing in England and 1993 bombing of the World Trade Centre, trying to assassinate Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Pervez Musharraf and Pope John Paul II, the beheading of reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, the Nightclub bombing in Bali, plots against oil tankers in Singapore and an oil company owned by Henry Kissinger, plans to blow up the Panama Canal, Heathrow Airport, the Sear Towers in Chicago, the Empire State Building in New York and the Library Tower in Los Angeles, attacks against a number of nightclubs in Thailand, shooting down an Israeli plane, destroying suspension bridges and bombing a hotel in Kenya and targets in South Korea. He also confessed to attacks and plots in Kuwait, Australia, Turkey, Japan, South Korea and Indonesia. William Glaberson of ''The New York Times'' has suggested that the willingness to confess to every accusation presented against him might make it more difficult for prosecutors to establish the validity of his confessions.

Mohamed al-Kahtani, one of sixteen people accused of being a "20th hijacker", has recanted his confessions that he had ties to Al Qaeda, had been sent to serve as a hijacker, and that he recognised thirty other captives as bodyguards of Osama bin Laden. He has stated that he was tortured and his family was threatened - in order to force his confessions. A copy of his interrogation log documented that he had been subjected to almost two months of continuous sleep deprivation, with three shifts of interrogators working around the clock to keep him disoriented.  His interrogation log documents that he was bound to chairs and force-fed, and administered enemas and IVs, in order to keep his body functioning during his extended sessions..

Walid bin 'Attash faces charges that he helped run a training camp in Lowgar, Afghanistan that trained two of the hijackers, and that he observed airport security during a flight to Malaysia, to aid the hijackers.

Ramzi Binalshibh is accused of helping the attackers enroll in American flight schools, been in frequent communication with them helped finance their time in the United States.

Ali Abdul Aziz Ali is alleged to have helped finance the hijackers' stay in the United States, teaching them to find hotels, use travellers' cheques and fit into Western culture.

Mustafa al-Hawsawi, originally thought to be another alias of Ali's, is likewise accused of helping the hijackers buy Western clothing, sign up for credit cards and financing their stay before the attacks.

The charges will be referred to Susan J. Crawford, appointed the convening authority of the Guantanamo military commissions last year, to determine if there is probable cause for proceedings to continue.

The commissions were established in 2006, after the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that the system of tribunals was illegal, violating both International and American laws designed to ensure the fair treatment and trials of captives. The tribunals have been criticized for only being used against a handful of detainees, and not reaching a verdict on any of the cases.