Friday, March 16, 2007

Portions of 9/11 Confession Patsy Relating to Torture in Custody Redacted

Mohammed 'confessed to 9/11, Pearl murder'

From correspondents in Washington

March 16, 2007 05:59am
Agence France-Presse

TOP al-Qaeda suspect Khalid Sheik Mohammed has confessed to plotting 31 terror attacks including September 11 and personally beheading US journalist Daniel Pearl, the Pentagon said overnight.

In a closed-door hearing before a panel of US military officers, the Pakistani national admitted to masterminding terror attacks and plots around the world, according to a partial transcript released by the Pentagon.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement, read by a US military officer at the hearing held at the US camp for "war on terror" suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Overnight, the Pentagon confirmed that Mohammed also said he had murdered Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, whose videotaped beheading shocked the world in 2002.

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," Mohammed said in the statement read out at the hearing.

"For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head," he said.

Mohammed's admission to taking Pearl's life was deleted from the transcript until the journalist's family had been notified, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

A suspected senior deputy to Osama bin Laden, Mohammed claimed responsibility for an array of other terrorist attacks, including the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing and the 2002 bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, according to the transcript.

He also claimed to have devised attacks in Britain, Singapore and the Panama Canal, and had planned to kill the Pope and former US presidents.

The White House declined to comment on Mohammed's statements, saying it did not want to influence any legal proceedings.

After Mohammed's capture in 2003 he was held in secret CIA prisons until he was transferred to military custody.

Mohammed gave the military tribunal at Sunday's hearing a written statement on alleged abuse during his detention.

The lead officer at the hearing asked Mohammed if any statements he made to interrogators were "as the result of any treatment that you received" from his capture in 2003 up until his arrival in Guantanamo in September 2006.

"CIA peoples. Yes. At the beginning when they transferred me ..." The rest of the transcript was redacted.

Asked whether President George W. Bush considered Mohammed's confession to be credible, spokesman Tony Snow said: "We cannot respond because of concerns about command influence with an ongoing military commission"

Mohammed gave the tribunal a long, rambling justification for his actions as part of a holy war against the United States.

"If America they want to invade Iraq they will not send for Saddam roses or kisses. They send for a bombardment ... For sure I am American enemies," he said.

"But when you said I'm terrorist, I think it is deceiving peoples. Terrorists, enemy combatant. All these definitions as CIA you can make whatever you want."

Mohammed is considered the most important of the 14 prime suspects who will appear before the latest military panels at Guantanamo on their "enemy combatant" status after being transferred from CIA custody overseas.

"Enemy combatant" status would pave the way for a trial by military tribunal.

The treatment and prosecution of "war on terror" suspects has sparked criticism at home and abroad. None of the 14 has had access to a lawyer and are instead represented at the hearings by a military officer.

The Pentagon released redacted transcripts of Mohammed's hearing along with those of two other captured al-Qaeda operatives - Abu Faraj al-Libi and Ramzi bin Al-Shibh.

Mohammed told the hearing he was "not happy" about the 3000 victims of the 2001 attacks by al-Qaeda hijackers who brought down the World Trade Centre towers and slammed into the Pentagon.

"I feel sorry even. I don't like to kill children and the kids ... I don't like to kill people."

Mohammed set out a vast list of attacks and plots against US, British and Israeli targets, including a "second wave" of attacks on US landmarks including the Empire State Building, the Heathrow Airport and the New York Stock Exchange.

Former US presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and Pope John Paul II were also assassination targets.

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