The five Guantanamo Bay detainees who are about to be charged with the 9/11 murders had planned on being tried by military commissions because, as they see themselves, they are soldiers, not criminals.

Instead, they will stand trial in a federal civilian court, not far from the scene of one of their crimes, the World Trade Center. And even though in one form or another they have confessed to, even bragged about, their guilt in 9/11, a lawyer for one of the prospective defendants says the five will plead innocent.

The reason, the attorney said, is to gain a public showplace for their religious and political views and a forum to denounce the U.S. military presence in Muslim countries and U.S. support for Israel. To further that end, they may even insist on conducting their own defense.

But a no-nonsense judge should be able to keep their meanderings to a minimum. And by the time they come to trial, there may be precedents for many of the more contentious trial issues.

With little public notice, another major terrorism trial has been under way in New York’s federal courts since spring. Ahmed Ghailani is charged with conspiracy in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Also at issue in his trial are his treatment in the CIA’s secret prisons and at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and how much about the terms of his imprisonment can be kept secret for national-security reasons.

The five alleged 9/11 conspirators are also said to be counting on the death penalty, since they see execution as a form of martyrdom. Their publicity-seeking ways suggest that being condemned to a lifetime of oblivion in a federal super-max prison may not be an altogether unfitting punishment.

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