They knelt in prayer, ignored the judge and wouldn’t listen to Arabic translations as they confronted nearly 3,000 counts of murder. The self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and four co-defendants defiantly disrupted an arraignment that ended late Saturday in the opening act of the long-stalled effort to prosecute them in a military court.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted architect of the 2001 attacks that sent hijacked jetliners into New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and the four men accused of aiding the conspiracy put off entering pleas until a later date. Another hearing was set for June 12.

Saturday’s arraignment, which should have taken a couple of hours at most, lasted almost 13 hours, including meal and prayer breaks, as the men appeared to make a concerted effort to stall the hearing at the U.S. military base in Cuba . The charges they face include 2,976 counts of murder and terrorism, which carry the death penalty.

Earlier Saturday, Mohammed cast off his earphones providing Arabic translations of the proceeding and refused to answer Army Col. James Pohl’s questions or acknowledge he understood them. All five men refused to participate in the hearing; two passed around a copy of The Economist magazine and leafed through the articles.

Walid bin Attash was confined to a restraint chair when he came into court, released only after he promised to behave.

Ramzi Binalshibh began praying alongside his defense table, followed by Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, in the middle of the hearing; Binalshibh then launched into a tirade in which he compared a prison official to the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and declared that he was in danger.

“Maybe they will kill me and say I committed suicide,’’ he said in a mix of Arabic and broken English.