Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is accused of being one of the major architects of 9/11, has seemingly floated the possibility of becoming part of a suit against Saudi Arabia in an effort to avoid the death penalty. Mohammed, who has previously expressed his desire to die as a martyr, has changed his tone to avoid a death sentence at the hands of a military commission in Guantanamo Bay, where he is currently being housed.
The suit, filed Friday in a New York federal court by victims of the 9/11 attacks, implicates Saudi Arabia as being complicit in the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people nearly 18 years ago.
Of the 19 hijackers identified as carrying out the attacks on 9/11, 15 were Saudi nationals. The Friday suit requested depositions from three of the five Guantanamo Bay inmates accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Lawyers for the detainees stated that Mohammed was not interested in being deposed at present because the death penalty is still possible for his alleged crimes. His lawyers suggested, however, that Mohammed could be moved to participate in a positive manner should the death penalty be taken off the table.
Mohammed’s request to have his life spared for cooperation in a lawsuit seemingly contradicts his previous desire to die as a martyr. In a 2008 hearing in Guantanamo Bay, Mohammed told the military judge, “In Allah I trust.” When the judge informed him that he could be sentenced to death for his crimes, Mohammed corrected the judge to say that it was not the death penalty but “martyrdom” and, “This is what I wish. I’ve been looking to be martyred for a long time.”
In addition to his suspected involvement in the deaths of thousands on 9/11, Mohammed is suspected of participating in dozens of other terror attacks around the globe, including the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002. Mohammed has confessed to this and many other crimes, though many cannot be proven. Of Pearl’s death, Mohammed said in 2008, “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan.” He further offered photographic evidence that showed the covered individual in the photo with Pearl’s murdered body to share several physical characteristics to Mohammed.
Mohammed was likely born in Pakistan in 1964 or 1965. He is thought to have also lived in Kuwait, where he joined the Muslim Brotherhood. Mohammed attended North Carolina colleges Chowan University and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, receiving a B.S. in mechanical engineering in 1986. He was reportedly radicalized shortly after his time in the U.S.
Living in Qatar in 1996, the U.S. requested to have Mohammed turned over for suspected terror activity. Qatar, a longtime rival of Saudi Arabia, opted instead to let Mohammed escape to Afghanistan. Mohammed said in a 2007 statement to the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z.”
