The trial of six men accused as conspirators in the September 11 attacks will be no ordinary criminal trial, and not even an ordinary circus trial, from the looks of it.

The Pentagon announced charges of murder and conspiracy this week against Sheikh Khalid Muhammad, Muhammad al-Qahtani, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali (also known as Amar al-Baluchi), Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Waleed bin Khalid, all of whom were captured by the U.S. in 2001 and have been detention at the Guantanamo Bay facility.

Among the notable elements of the trial to come:

• The legal basis for the charges may come into question, since it was gathered using "enhanced" interrogation techniques, including waterboarding of at least one suspect, that may legally be considered torture. Evidence obtained through torture is not legally admissible in U.S. courts.
• The trials are to be held in recently established military tribunal system
• The trials will be held in Cuba, not the United States, in newly built courts designed for these tribunals.
• The defendants may complicate their defense because, as self-described warriors for a worthy cause, they "won't have much interest in proving themselves innocent," according to Ben Wittes, of the Brookings Institution.
• The defendants may, however, want to press lawsuits of their own for illegal torture.
• Family of September 11 victims will be permitted to view the trial via closed-circuit television.
• The United States has advised diplomats to communicate to foreign questioners to compare the trials to the Nuremberg trials, at which Nazi war criminals were convicted.

Responses to date? Guantanamo Is Not Nuremberg | Six Charged with 9/11 Murders: Why Now? | UK Concern at Military Trial| Executions May Be Carried Out at Gitmo