Khaled Sheikh Mohammed was happy to die. But on June 5 – the day the self-confessed mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the US resurfaced after five years in the CIA’s shadowy network of secret prisons, and then behind the concertina wire at Guantánamo Bay – he was unhappy with his nose. Scrutinising the efforts of the courtroom artist assigned to relay the first glimpse of him to the world outside, Mohammed, a committed enemy of America who had wanted “to be a martyr for a long time”, balked. His nose, he said, was wrong. The artist should draw it thinner. Maybe she should take a look at his FBI mug shot for guidance.

For a man facing his accusers at a US military commission to answer charges that carried the death penalty, it was a curious concern. But on a day rich in the surreal and incongruous, the nose had to be right. Besides, Mohammed’s determination to direct his own image-making had a certain resonance. Why wouldn’t this charismatic man – better known to his comrades in jihad as Mukhtar (“The Brain”) for his pioneering terrorist exploits – want to redress the impression the last photograph of him had conveyed to the world?