Three of five alleged plotters in the September 11 terrorist attacks have today demanded they be sentenced to death at a US military hearing.
Alleged mastermind Mohammed along with Wallid Bin Attash and Ramzi Binalshibh have told the court they have been looking to be a martyr for a long time.
Mohammed stood in a US military court, sang a chant of praise to Allah and said he would welcome the death penalty.
"This is what I wish, to be martyred," Pakistani captive Mohammed, the highest-ranking al-Qaeda operative in US custody, told the Guantanamo war crimes court.
He and four accused co-conspirators appeared in court at the Guantanamo Bay US naval base in Cuba for the first time on charges that could result in their execution.
As the judge questioned him about whether he was satisfied with the US military lawyer appointed to defend him, Mohammed stood and began to sing in Arabic, cheerfully pausing to translate his own words into English.
"My shield is Allah most high," he said, adding that his religion forbade him from accepting a lawyer from the United States and that he wanted to act as his own attorney.
He criticised the United States for fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, waging what he called "a crusader war", and enacting illegal laws, including those authorising same-sex marriages.
The judge, Marine Col Ralph Kohlmann, tried to persuade Mohammed to accept a lawyer, telling him, "It's a bad idea for you to represent yourself."
Mohammed looked old and portly and wore a long, bushy grey beard and big black military-issue glasses.
He wore a neat white tunic and turban, in stark contrast to the saggy white undershirt he wore in photographs taken after his capture during a raid in Pakistan in March 2003.
No photographers were allowed inside the courtroom for the first appearance of Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators on war crimes charges.
Artist Janet Hamlin's sketches were reviewed to make sure it didn't include classified information, and wound up in Mohammed's hands. Mohammed wasn't pleased.
"I heard he said I should compare it to the FBI photo of him," Hamlin said, clutching a copy of the much-publicised capture photo that showed Mohammed in a T-shirt looking dishevelled and unshaven.
Asked if Mohammed had a point, Hamlin said: "I agree totally" before rushing back to the courtroom to downsize his nose.