Trial process to begin for accused 9/11 plotters

All face possible death sentences, but the question of whether the trials will ever get underway and how long they could last still looms darkly over the process.

To be arraigned alongside Mohammed are Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, a Saudi Arabian; Ramzi Binalshibh of Yemen; Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Mohammed8217;s nephew also from Kuwait; and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, of Saudi Arabia.

The five were arrested between 2002 and 2003 and held for interrogation for several years in secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons outside the United States. In 2006 they were transferred to Guantanamo, but only in early May were they referred for trial by the convening authority of the military commissions set up to try US 8220;war on terror8221; detainees.

In the June 5 hearing judge Ralph Kohlmann, a US marines colonel, will formally read the charges against them and allow each to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty, or postpone the plea.

Until charges were first officially set in February, the detainees were unable to meet with lawyers, as the military had designated the men themselves with top secret classifications.