WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Five detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, say they want to confess to conspiracy charges for planning the September 11, 2001, attacks, a Pentagon spokeswoman said Monday.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the confessed architect of the attacks, and four other alleged co-conspirators asked a military judge if they could withdraw all pending motions and plead guilty, Maj. Gail Crawford said in an e-mail.
The defendants announced their decision in front of relatives of victims in the al Qaeda-orchestrated attacks, said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel for Human Rights Watch. She attended Monday's hearing.
The military judge accepted the requests from Mohammed, Ali Abdul Azziz Ali and Walid Bin Attash, but ruled competency hearings are first needed for Mustafa al Hawsawi and Ramzi Bin al Shibh, because "questions exist as to their competency to stand trial," Crawford said.
It has not been determined whether the defendants, formally charged in June, will face a potential death sentence.
The commissions to try foreign terrorists have been delayed for years by legal challenges.
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Dec 8, 2008
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