"You have the wrong person in the seat," said the terror suspect, who US military authorities identify as Binyam Muhammad.
"You have to go back and find out who this person is you're talking about," Muhammad said in a British accent, indicating his last name was spelled differently than the one listed on his charge sheet.
As the presiding officer tried to move the pre-trial hearing forward,
Muhammad ridiculed the proceedings with sarcasm and rhetorical questions.
"You don't even have the right information on me after four years of torture," he said.
Muhammad's defence lawyers allege his trial on conspiracy charges is based on statements extracted through torture during interrogations in Morocco before he was transferred to the US prison at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base in September 2004.
Military prosecutors allege that Muhammad underwent training at an Al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and had instructions to set off explosions in apartment buildings and gas stations in the United States.
The presiding officer, Colonel Ralph Kohlmann, listened stoically to
Muhammad's rambling denunciations and repeatedly asked him who he wanted to serve as his defence counsel in the trial.
Muhammad, 27, a lanky man with a bushy black beard and a black skull cap, said he wanted to speak for himself and did not want an American lawyer as required by the rules of the special tribunals.
The presiding officer explained that the rules denied detainees the right to represent themselves and that only US citizens could serve as his lawyers.
Saying he did not recognize the proceedings as legitimate, Muhammad declared the military commission was an attempt to "con" the world that the trials were fair and held up a handwritten sign in black ink reading: "con-mission."
After several hours, the presiding officer asked Muhammad to enter a plea and the defendant refused, pushing away a microphone on his table. The tribunal chief concluded the defendant's plea was "not guilty".
Muhammad was arrested in April 2002 in Karachi by Pakistani authorities as he tried to return to London using a forged passport, according to his charge sheet.
Prosecutors say he was an accomplice of Jose Padilla, a US citizen who allegedly planned attacks on civilians and whose legal objections to his detention by military authorities have gained widespread media attention in the United States.