Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed to be the highest-ranking al Qaeda operative in US custody, confessed to a total of 31 charges on Saturday, in a one-hour closed-door military tribunal hearing at GuantanamoBay. However, legal experts in the US have warned that the circumstances under which the confessions were extracted may serve to weaken them.
Mr Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in March 2003 and held in secret detention facilities by the CIA for more than three years. He was transferred into military custody at GuantanamoBay in September following the US Supreme Court decision that all al Qaeda detainees are covered by the Geneva Conventions.
Presenting himself as a soldier fighting for independence, Mr Mohammed boasted that he had masterminded the 9/11 attacks “from A to Z”, the December 2001 (failed) shoe-bomber plot to down US airliners over the Atlantic, the October 2002 bombings of nightclubs in Bali (Indonesia) and the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. He also claimed to have helped orchestrate a series of assassinations which were never carried out on former US Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, as well as the late Pope John Paul II. He further claimed that he was involved in plans to bomb American and Israeli embassies in Asia and Australia, and attack American naval vessels and oil tankers around the world.
According to a transcript of the hearing released by the Pentagon on Thursday, Mr Mohammed, a Kuwaiti national, mostly spoke for himself in broken English and occasionally asked for Arabic phrases to be translated into English by a personal representative, who also read out his detailed written confession.
During the hearing, Mr Mohammed argued that Osama bin Laden and George Washington shared similar roles historically, and that the attacks against the US were comparable to the invasion of Iraq.
He said George Washington would have been considered an enemy combatant by England during the American Revolutionary War. “As consider George Washington as hero. Muslims many of them are considering Osama bin Laden. He is doing same thing. He is just fighting. He needs his independence,” said Mr Mohammed, who added that he wants to make a “great awakening” to force the United States to stop foreign policy “in our land”.
He said he was “sorry” that children had died in the 9/11 attacks. “I’m not happy that 3,000 been killed in America. I feel sorry, even. I don’t like to kill children and the kids. Never Islam are give me green light to kill people. Killing, as in the Christianity, Jews and Islam, are prohibited.”
However, Mr Mohammed said the US had made an exception for itself in this respect because it had not hesitated to kill innocent people, including children, in order to invade Iraq. “There are exception of rule when you are killing people in Iraq. You said we have to do it. We don’t like Saddam. But this is the way to deal with Saddam. Same thing you are saying. Same language you use, I use. You know very well there are language for any war. So … when I admitting these things I’m not saying I’m not did it. I did it by this the language of any war. If America they want to invade Iraq, they will not send for Saddam roses or kisses, they send for a bombardment.”
In the most grisly and graphic confession at the hearing, Mr Mohammed boasted in a statement read out by his personal representative that he had personally beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002, a crime for which he seemed particularly proud because of Mr Pearl’s Jewish heritage. “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan,” said Mr Mohammed in the statement. “For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.” He later argued that Mr Pearl was a spy for both the CIA and the Mossad (the Israeli intelligence agency), and said his beheading had not been part of an al Qaeda operation, but had been carried out in cooperation with the mujahadeen in Pakistan.
The US case against Mr Mohammed, especially in relation to his involvement in the 9/11 attacks, is partially based on a computer hard drive found in his possession when he was captured. It is alleged to have contained code names, flight numbers and photographs of the 9/11 hijackers. Mr Mohammed repeatedly argued that the hard drive actually belonged to another detainee, Mustafa Hawsawi. However, the tribunal president ruled that ownership of the hard drive is irrelevant to Mr Mohammed’s status as a combatant, and his very possession of the hard drive is itself an offense.
Mr Mohammed challenged the fairness of this ruling as well as that of the military tribunal framework, in which he apparently has no legal representation. “I have been held by the United States for over two years without any indication of how the judicial system is going to deal with my situation. This is a very long period of time without being subject to a court of justice … It is in my opinion that the detainee is in a lose-lose situation … the United States is fully represented while I have not been given the same opportunities.”
There is some confusion regarding a few of Mr Mohammed’s confessions that do not seem to add up. For example, US authorities doubt that he had a role in the 1993 WorldTradeCenter attack. Terrorist mastermind Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and accomplice coordinator Ramzi Ahmed Yousef have already been convicted for the attack. Similarly, US and Indonesian officials know the identities of the terrorists behind the Bali bombings in 2002. Meanwhile, US and Turkish intelligence officials doubt that Mr Mohammed provided financial support to “hit American, Jewish and British targets in Turkey”.
The Associated Press has reported that experts are warning that Mr Mohammed seems to have exaggerated his role in some of the plots, in an effort to bolster his own image and that of al Qaeda. “I have never known a criminal - either terrorist or otherwise - that didn't exaggerate,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), a former FBI agent and the top Republican on the terrorism panel of the House Intelligence Committee.
Mr Mohammed has also claimed that he was tortured by the CIA during the first years of his detention, and that several of his confessions were made as a result of the torture. Legal experts have further warned that this may weaken his confessions.
The CIA has repeatedly denied that it uses torture in the interrogation of detainees.
"“I have never known a criminal - either terrorist or otherwise - that didn't exaggerate,” said Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), a former FBI agent and the top Republican on the terrorism panel of the House Intelligence Committee."
Haha, ROTFLMAO. And here I thought a lot of criminals claim they are innocent. I guess Mr. Rogers (haha) will sponsor a bill to release all criminals who claim innocence, being as all the guilty ones "exaggerate".
Written by Sage
on 3/18/2007
I like the thorough and objectively written article, with excerpts from the transcript that I haven't seen anywhere else and have been wondering if anyone else even noticed or cared.
Yes, this guy writes a best seller. I told a friend it may be the best book I ever read.
But alas, I don't think anyone who has never been in captivity can realize how brilliant this guy is. In fact, I Know they can't.
Written by Mike Hnatusko
on 3/17/2007
Surely, after five years and two weeks in the clutches of CIA Rendition
facilities around the "FREE WORLD", one would expect Khalid to be making
confessions to all sorts of "high crimes and misdemeanors" and acts of
terror, plans for acts of terror, mayhem, treachery, plunder, mass murder
and all sorts of dastardly deeds.
Who is convinced that CIA would not have provided Khalid with opiate drugs
to make him addictive to the point that after five years, he would say
anything to anyone at any time to get his next fix. Throw in a maze of
torture tactics just to keep Khalid "honest" and you have your talking
magpie that will confess to raping all the nuns in the Vatican.
His "confession" flows without so much as a hiccup for all the world to see,
verbatim, as if in lock step with his handlers. Interestingly enough, we
are not provided with any motivation for Khalid's vitriolic "faucet method"
of providing all the lurid details of all the plans he claims responsibility
for.
This is not unlike taking two Vietcong up in a helicopter for interrogation
and throwing the first one out before questioning number two. That person
will quickly tell you things that he had never entered his terrorized mind
beforehand.
We can see from Khalid's "confession" that the use of "actionable
intelligence" that would have had an effect on a battlefield environment
would be null and void. The primary goal here was to lock down the
"confession" of a culprit that has no chance of recanting and would nicely
fit the government's "conspiracy theory" for 911.
It is interesting to note that Khalid never "confessed" to placing bombs in
the basements of the WTC buildings that collapsed at free fall speed. He
also never confessed to placing "cutter charges" in the upper floors of WTC
buildings One and Two. Khalid also never "confessed" as to how the 19 high
jacker's made it onto four aircraft without their names being on the
manifest of any of the aircraft. He also does not "confess" to the
disposition of Flight 77 whereabouts since it certainly did not hit the
Pentagon. He also does not "confess" to the reasons why it was necessary to
create the conflicting evidence of these flights or why the government had
the names of all the perp's immediately or why at least seven of them are
still alive and well to this very day.
But now we have the "mother of all confessions". The military tribunal
which heard this "confession" will soon "do its duty" and sentence Khalid to
death, never to be requestioned by independent minded professionals and the
government prosecutors can all retire to the Officer's Club for Happy Hour.
Confessions, my ass!
John McCarthy
http://johnmccarthy90066.tripod.com
vpocv@hotmail.com
Written by John McCarthy
on 3/17/2007
And I imagine Khalid confessed to the Lindberg kidnapping too - film at eleven.
1 Why is it that the corporate media misses certain key points, such as Khalid is confessing to blowing up a bank that didn't exist when he went to prison? Evidence known by intelligence worldwide for years contradicts as preposterous most of these so-called confessions. Of course he didn't have a role in almost any one of them.
2 It isn't lost on anyone that the day this information happened to have been released is the same day subpoenas have been granted by Congress to ask members of the immediate White House staff to testify in the AttorneyGate scandal. This type of smokescreen is a well-known and time-worn practice by this administration. Were you fooled by it?
3 With this administration's prediliction for torture, no prisoner's commentary held in US custody has any credibility no matter what they purportedly say.
Why is it that most everyday American citizens know these sorts of things but your publication seemingly does not?
Written by thenekkidtruth
on 3/17/2007
How did KSM get the bombs past security? Who ever was on watch, Georgie Porgie's brother, dropped the ball. Imagine, removing the bomb-sniffing dogs and powering down the security system of the WTC the weekend before 911 so that a bunch of guys could go install "internet cables." That's how the bombs were planted the eyewitnesses point out.
So I suppose Bin Laden didn't do it after all, Khalid says he carried it out A to Z. He knocked down Building # 7. Khalid Sheik Muhammed it seems has greater powers than the Man of Steel, he is the man who magically melts steel, and pulverizes mountains of concrete with mosquito-like amounts of jet fuel. The war in Afghanistan was based on false pretenses, and we're still waiting to see all that evidence.
Neocon drones admit now that there wasn't enough evidence to pin 911 in Bin Laden in civilian court, so now we can believe KSM did it, that's why we need more military courts who are less likely to weigh the evidence in a fashion unhindered by generals who believe jet fuel could melt steel, who think arabs carried out 911 and not the neocon terrororist goon squads attempting to influence politics in America, albeit counterproductively.
Indeed there exists the need to have a real 911 trial, not one using secret evidence, behind closed doors. We need to ask the question, who really carried out 911? Were the 200 Israeli spies arrested involved? Odd that their spy in mexico would by caught trying to blow up the parliament, dressed up as an Arab. Did they not do it order to have our nation enter a war against their Mideast enemies, luring us in with the bait of oil? Are the oil companies complicit? Anyone complicit in this crime, unwilling to prosecute the facts, is a criminal right along side the 911 bombers, and they can bet justice is surely coming upon your heels.
And the religious right as well as many neocons, have devoloped and maintained greater allegiance to Israel than to America, at such an expense that we have been lured into a huge mideast war. They are willing to turn a blind eye to the crime of 911, cling to a lie, and are willing to allow the murderers who put the bombs in the world trade center to go free. The religious right has attempted to impose an unconstitutional religious foreign policy that exploits a religion. Just as what were thought as christian extremists were once thrown to the lions, the government has fabricated this notion that Muslims are America's enemies and are behind 911, when all the evidence points to an inside job.
Written by kuraltai
on 3/17/2007
It was so good to read this article since I'd heard so little about it and was curious. You did a good job of reporting, and will read more.
Thank You!
Written by Maxine Mesbergen
on 3/17/2007
The Mega confessions may or may not get him conviction but certainly can give him a great best seller book writing opportunity.
To
Buzz Right Back on this article