Egyptian-born terror suspect pleads not guilty

Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, 54, entered the plea shortly before U.S. District Judge Katherine B. Forrest set an Aug. 26 trial date. Mustafa, widely known by the name Abu Hamza al-Masri, is also accused of helping abduct 16 hostages, two of them American tourists, in Yemen in 1998.

"He's presumed innocent," his court-appointed lawyer, Jeremy Schneider, said outside court afterward. When someone asked Schneider whether he thought his client was a terrorist, he snapped: "That's a silly question."

Schneider said his client prefers to be known as Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, the name listed first on his indictment. Abu Hamza and Abu Hamza al-Masri are listed as aliases.

There was no mention in court Tuesday about access to the prosthetics — including a hook — that Mustafa uses in place of the hands he says he lost fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, but Schneider said outside court that it was a problem for him.

"I believe he has use of them for a certain part of the day but not long enough to allow him to function the way he should function," he said. "As you can well imagine, he's not happy he's in a situation like this without use of his prosthetics."

"He's having a hard time. He doesn't have hands," he said.

He also is missing an eye. His lawyers in England said he suffers from depression, chronic sleep deprivation, diabetes and other ailments.

Earlier Tuesday, two men brought from England to face terrorism charges on Saturday along with Mustafa made their first appearance before U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who set an October 2013 trial date.

Khaled al-Fawwaz, 50, and Adel Abdul Bary, 52, are charged with participating in the bombings of embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in August 1998. The attacks killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. They were indicted in a case that also charged Osama bin Laden.