Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, appearing for the first time since his capture five years ago, said he would welcome becoming a "marytr" after a judge warned Thursday that he faces the death penalty for his confessed role as mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.Wearing thick glasses and occasionally fussing with his turban or stroking his bushy gray beard, Mohammed seemed noticeably thinner than the image of a slovenly man with disheveled hair, an unshaven face and a T-shirt that the U.S. showed to the world after his capture in Pakistan.
Mohammed chanted verses from the Quran, rejected his attorneys and told Judge Ralph Kohlmann, a Marine colonel, that he wants to represent himself at the war crimes trial.
The judge warned that he faces execution if convicted of organizing the attacks on America. But the former No. 3 leader of al-Qaida was insistent. "Yes, this is what I wish, to be a martyr for a long time," Mohammed declared. "I will, God willing, have this, by you."