Guantanamo Defendant Praises Bin Laden

An alleged al Qaeda conspirator from Sudan praised Osama bin Laden and the September 11 attacks during a hearing in the Guantanamo war court on Thursday and said he did not recognize the court's authority to try him.

"I believe that Osama bin Laden has succeeded in a great way in attacking you militarily and economically," the prisoner, Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi, told the U.S. military court at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

In a courtroom speech often difficult to understand because of problems with Arabic-English interpretation, al Qosi said the attacks on New York and the Pentagon had exposed a lack of justice and equality in the United States, which preached human rights to other nations.

"The whole world has a headache from your hypocrisy," said al Qosi, who is accused by the United States of helping bin Laden escape to the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001.

He is the second prisoner this week to use his appearance to heap scorn on the court in a remote, U.S.-controlled corner of Cuba. On Wednesday, Saudi Arabian prisoner Ahmed al Darbi called the court "a scam" and "a scandal" and said he would not attend further sessions of his trial on charges of plotting with al Qaeda to blow up ships in the Middle East.