GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, will likely appear in court in the death penalty case’s pretrial proceedings for the first time since February 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic largely shut down the specialized island war court operations in Guantanamo Bay.
In the two decades since 19 al Qaeda terrorists crashed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center buildings, the Pentagon, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, killing nearly 3,000 people, the five men believed to be responsible for the planning and execution of the plot have yet to stand trial. The key question of whether confessions obtained by the FBI after their CIA custody should be admissible remains unresolved.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, dubbed “KSM” and described as “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks” in the 9/11 Commission Report, was a close ally of Osama bin Laden and was repeatedly waterboarded during numerous sessions while in U.S. custody. Mohammed is being tried alongside four co-defendants: his nephew, Ammar Baluchi, who sent money transfers to 9/11 hijackers inside the United States; alleged hijacking trainer Walid bin Attash; 9/11 facilitator Ramzi bin Shibh; and al Qaeda money man Mustafa Hawsawi.
The defense teams are seeking to throw out confessions that the five men made to FBI “clean teams” at Guantanamo Bay after they had been subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” considered torture by many, at the CIA black sites. The 9/11 pretrial hearings were paused in February of last year as the prosecutors and defense teams battled over a variety of legal issues and took testimony related from those involved in interrogating the accused plotters, including multiple days of testimony by two of the three men known to have waterboarded Mohammed. The judge must rule on whether confessions made to the FBI will be admissible.
Air Force Col. Matthew McCall will be taking over as judge in the case for the first time on Tuesday, making him the fourth judge to preside over hearings in this iteration of the 9/11 case. Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, who had been the lead prosecutor since 2011, put in for retirement this summer and left the case this month. The lead defense counsel, Brig. Gen. John G. Baker, is also slated to retire later this year.
15 YEARS AFTER GITMO ARRIVAL, KSM STILL AWAITS 9/11 TRIAL
Dr. James Mitchell, a former Air Force survival school psychologist contracted by the CIA to assist with its interrogation efforts, personally waterboarded Mohammed in an estimated 15 waterboarding sessions in 2003 at CIA black sites. The sessions included at least 183 applications of the simulated drowning technique. Mitchell said he, his business partner Dr. Bruce Jessen, and a third man he dubbed “The Preacher” waterboarded Mohammed while guards kept a watchful eye.
Mohammed’s lawyers last year repeatedly pointed to a 2014 Senate report that concluded: “The CIA’s justification for the use of its enhanced interrogation techniques rested on inaccurate claims of their effectiveness.”
During his January 2020 testimony, and in his 2016 book titled Enhanced Interrogation, Mitchell defended his actions as being part of his patriotic duty to stop further attacks in the wake of the 9/11 al Qaeda hijackings, telling the court, “I’d get up and do it again.”
“‘Call me Mukhtar,’ KSM demanded in perfect, easily understood English and with a hint of pride in his voice,” Mitchell wrote in his book. “Then, in a lecturing tone, he added, ‘Mukhtar’ means ‘the Brain.’ I was the amir of the 9/11 attacks.’”
Mohammed, who was likely born in Pakistan in 1964 or 1965, was captured there in March 2003, when Pakistani police arrested him in Rawalpindi. He was quickly sent to a black site dubbed “Cobalt,” believed to be in Afghanistan, and four days later, he was sent to another black site code-named “Blue,” thought to be in Poland.
Records obtained by Judicial Watch showed that then-CIA Director Michael Hayden briefed members of Congress in 2002 that al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah pointed to Mohammed as the 9/11 mastermind, with Hayden claiming that Mohammed “did not even appear in our chart of key al Qaeda members and associates” until then.
Before 9/11, Mohammed traveled across Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America during the 1990s as he plotted attacks and recruited volunteers, and he pitched bin Laden on the suicide hijacking plan. Mohammed Atta, the lead 9/11 hijacker, took on a larger role in selecting the flights and the specific hijacking teams, while Khalid Sheikh Mohammed focused more on recruitment.
Mohammed told al Jazeera in 2002 that al Qaeda referred to the attacks as “Holy Tuesday” and bragged: “The attacks were designed to cause as many deaths as possible and havoc and be a big slap for America on American soil. … We were never short of potential martyrs. Indeed, we have a department called the Department of Martyrs.”
Mohammed confessed to planning the 9/11 attacks in a March 2007 statement to the Combatant Status Review Tribunal.
“I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z,” Mohammed said. “I was the operational director for Sheikh Osama bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up, and execution of the 9/11 operation.”
Mohammed also said, “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. … The language of war is victims.” He said that he was the “emir” of the “Martyrs’ House” in Afghanistan, which he said housed 9/11 hijackers.
When the judge in a 2008 hearing informed him he could be sentenced to death for his crimes, Mohammed welcomed “martyrdom” and told the judge, “In Allah I trust.” He said: ”This is what I wish. I’ve been looking to be martyred for a long time.” He has since backed away from this.
Mohammed also confessed to planning assassination plots against Pope John Paul II and U.S. presidents such as Jimmy Carter, and he said that he participated in other terrorist attacks, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six people, “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s 2001 attempt to blow up an airliner, and the 2002 Bali nightclub bombing in Indonesia that killed 202 people.
Mohammed further admitted to killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002, saying: “I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head.” The FBI has said that a vein on the arm of the man in the video decapitating Pearl matches that of Mohammed.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The case has been delayed many times following unfavorable Supreme Court decisions under President George W. Bush and an abandoned effort by President Barack Obama to try the men in a New York City federal court, with President Donald Trump vowing to keep it open and President Joe Biden now quietly working to end detainee operations at Guantanamo Bay. After multiple scuttled military commissions, numerous retired judges, battles over classified information, and accusations of torture, the death penalty trial had been set for 2021, but COVID-19 upended that, and with yet another new judge starting this week, it is unclear where things now stand.
