No Internet for 9/11 accused: military judge

WASHINGTON, USA: Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 2001 attacks on the United States, who is facing death penalty trial, will not be allowed to use Internet in the prison cell, ruled the U.S. military judge.

He ruled that Mohammed does not need the facility. However Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann said that the al-Qaida person and his four alleged co-conspirators could use a laptop.

The October 6 ruling, posted on Pentagon Web site, also asked the Guantánamo guards to ensure that the accused get enough battery power to use their prison camp laptops 12 hours a day.

The five detainees are accused of killing nearly 3,000 people on September 11 2001. During the hearing held last month, the prosecutors had argued that if the accused are provided access to the outside world, that would pose a security risk.

However, the court allowed them to use the computer so that the accused could review the evidence. The accused had also sought permission to use equipment such as printers and also provisions to speak with their family members over telephone.

The court denied this and said the accused are entitled to have additional resources installed on their laptops including a legal dictionary, the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva Conventions.

According to Kohlmann, "Reasonable access does not equate to a right or an entitlement to be placed on the same footing as a technologically state of the art law office."

Accused Mohammed, his nephew Ammar al-Baluchi and Walid Bin Attash had sought through their standby counsel to permit them to use the Net to read news accounts and do live research on databases as well.

Al-Baluchi, 31, who is said to be a Microsoft certified software engineer, had also a DVD writer, PowerPoint software, printers, a scanner and a hotline to the Pentagon's defence counsel's office.