| Khalid Sheikh Mohammed خالد شیخ محمد | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Mohammed in 2003, after his capture | |
| Born | (1965-04-14)14 April 1965 (age 60)[1] Kuwait City, Kuwait[2] |
| Arrested | 1 March 2003 Rawalpindi, Pakistan |
| Detained at | Guantanamo Bay detention camp |
| ISN | 10024 |
| Charges |
|
| Status | Life imprisonment |
| Children | 8[citation needed] |
| Relatives | Zahid Al-Sheikh (brother) Ramzi Yousef (nephew) Ammar al-Baluchi (nephew) |
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (born 14 April 1965;Urdu:خالد شیخ محمد; sometimes also spelledShaykh;[3] and known by at least 50pseudonyms[4] including his initialsKSM), is a Kuwaiti-born Pakistani terrorist, and the former head of propaganda foral-Qaeda. As of 2025[update], he is held by theUnited States at theGuantanamo Bay detention camp underterrorism-related charges.[5] He was named as "the principal architect of the9/11 attacks" in the 20049/11 Commission Report.[6]
Mohammed was a member ofOsama bin Laden's terrorist organization al-Qaeda, leading al-Qaeda'spropaganda operations from around 1999 until late 2001. Mohammed was captured on 1 March 2003, in the Pakistani city ofRawalpindi by a combined operation of the U.S.Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pakistan'sInter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Immediately after his capture, Mohammed wasextraordinarily rendered tosecret CIA prison sites inAfghanistan, thenPoland, where he was interrogated and tortured by U.S. operatives.[7] By December 2006, he had been transferred tomilitary custody atGuantanamo Bay detention camp.
Mohammed is widely regarded as the chief planner of theSeptember 11 attacks. He also participated in planning theRichard Reid shoe bombing attempt to blow up an airliner; the2002 Bali bombings inIndonesia; the1993 World Trade Center bombing; the murder ofDaniel Pearl and various foiled attacks as well as numerous other crimes.[8][9][10] He was charged in February 2008 withwar crimes and murder by aU.S. military commission at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, which could carry thedeath penalty if convicted. In 2012, a former military prosecutor criticized the proceedings as insupportable due to confessions gained undertorture.[9]A 2008 decision by theUnited States Supreme Court had also drawn into question the legality of the methods used to gain such admissions and the admissibility of such admissions as evidence in a criminal proceeding.[11]
On 30 August 2019, a military judge set a date of 11 January 2021 forMohammed's death penalty trial.[12] His trial was further postponed on 18 December 2020, due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.[13] Mohammed's trial restarted on 7 September 2021[14] but was postponed again for years of plea deal negotiations.[15] On 31 July 2024, Mohammed agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence rather than a death-penalty trial.[16] His plea deal was revoked by Secretary of DefenseLloyd Austin two days later.[17][18] In July 2025, the plea deal was voided by a D.C. appeals court in a 2–1 ruling.[19]
Mohammed was born on 14 April 1965, toBaloch parents,[20][1] inKuwait.[21][22][23] His father, Shaikh Muhammad Ali Dustin al-Baluchi,[24] was aDeobandi imam inAl Ahmadi, who moved with his family fromBalochistan, Pakistan; to Kuwait in the 1950s.[25][26] His mother was Halema Mohammed.[27] Mohammed was raised in Badawiya, a neighborhood of theFahaheel suburb ofKuwait City.[26] Mohammed is the uncle ofRamzi Yousef, who was convicted on terrorism charges for his part in the1993 World Trade Center bombing, andAmmar Al Baluchi, who is accused of involvement in multiple terror plots. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is one of at least five siblings -- four boys and a girl. His brothers' names are Zahed (pious); Abed (worshiper), and Aref (knowledgeable). Mohammed is fluent inBalochi,Urdu,Arabic, andEnglish.[28]
According to U.S. federal documents, in 1982 he had heardAbdulrab Rasul Sayyaf's speech in which a call for jihad against theSoviets was declared.[1] At age 16, he joined theMuslim Brotherhood.[29] After graduating from high school in 1983, Mohammed travelled to theUnited States and enrolled atChowan University inMurfreesboro, North Carolina. He later transferred toNorth Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and received aBachelor of Science (BS) inmechanical engineering in 1986.[1][30]
The following year, he went toPeshawar, Pakistan,[1] where he and his brothers, includingZahed, joined themujahideen forces engaged in theSoviet–Afghan War. He attended the Sada training camp run byAbdallah Azzam, and after that he worked for the magazineal-Bunyan al-Marsous, produced by Sayyaf's rebel group, theIslamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan. In 1992, he received a master's degree in Islamic Culture and History through correspondence classes fromPunjab University in Pakistan.[1] By 1993, Mohammed had married and moved his family toQatar, where he took a position as project engineer with the Qatari Ministry of Electricity and Water.[1] He began to travel to different countries from that time onward.
The United States 9/11 Commission Report notes that, "By his own account, KSM's animosity toward the United States stemmed not from his experiences there as a student, but rather from his violent disagreement withU.S. foreign policy favoringIsrael."[31]
However, on 29 August 2009,The Washington Post reported from U.S. intelligence sources that Mohammed's time in the U.S. contributed to hisradicalization:
"KSM's limited and negative experience in the United States—which included a brief jail stay because of unpaid bills—almost certainly helped propel him on his path to becoming a terrorist," according to this intelligence summary. "He stated that his contact with Americans, while minimal, confirmed his view that the United States was a debauched and racist country."[32]
Mohammed traveled to thePhilippines in 1994 to work with his nephewRamzi Yousef on the Bojinka plot, aManila-based plot to destroy 12 commercial airliners flying routes between the United States,East Asia, andSoutheast Asia. He identified as aSaudi or aQatariplywood exporter and used the aliases "Abdul Majid" and "Salem Ali."[33][34] The 9/11 Commission Report says that "this marked the first time KSM took part in the actual planning of a terrorist operation."[35]
Using airline timetables, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi Yousef devised a scheme whereby five men could, in a single day, board 12 flights—two each for three of the men, three each for the other two—assemble and deposit their bombs and exit the planes, leaving timers to ignite the bombs up to several days afterward. By the time the bombs exploded, the men would be far away and far from reasonable suspicion. The math was simple: 12 flights with at least 400 people per flight. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 5,000 deaths. It would be a day of glory for them, calamity for the Americans they supposed would fill the aircraft.[36]
In December 1994, Ramzi Yousef had engaged in a test of a bomb onPhilippine Airlines Flight 434 using only about ten percent of the explosives that were to be used in each of the bombs to be planted on U.S. airliners. The test resulted in the death of a Japanese national on board a flight from the Philippines to Japan. Mohammed conspired with Yousef in the plot until it was uncovered on 6 January 1995. Yousef was captured 7 February of that same year.[citation needed]
Mohammed was indicted on terrorism charges in theUnited States District Court for the Southern District of New York in January 1996 for his alleged involvement in Operation Bojinka,[37] and was subsequently on 10 October 2001 listed as one of the FBI's 22Most Wanted Terrorists.[38] In early 1996, Mohammed returned toAfghanistan to avoid capture by U.S. authorities.[39] In his flight fromQatar, he was sheltered by SheikhAbdullah Al Thani, who was theQatari Minister of Religious Affairs in 1996.[40][41][42][43]
By the time theBojinka plot was discovered, Mohammed had returned to Qatar and his job as a project engineer at the country's Ministry of Electricity and Water. He traveled in 1995 toSudan,Yemen,Malaysia, andBrazil to visit elements of the worldwidejihadist community, although no evidence connects him to specific terrorist actions in any of those locations. On his trip to Sudan, he attempted to meet withOsama bin Laden, who was at the time living there, aided by Sudanese political leaderHassan al-Turabi. After the U.S. asked the Qatari government to arrest Mohammed in January 1996, he fled toAfghanistan, where he renewed his alliance with Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. Later that year, he formed a working relationship with Bin Laden, who had settled there.[citation needed]
Bin Laden and his colleagues relocated their operations to Afghanistan at this time.Mohammed Atef, bin Laden's chief of operations and also known at the time as Abu Hafs al-Masri, arranged a meeting between bin Laden and Mohammed inTora Bora sometime in mid-1996, in which Mohammed outlined a plan that would eventually become the quadruple hijackings in 2001.[44] Bin Laden urged Mohammed to become a full-fledged member of al-Qaeda, but he continued to refuse such a commitment until around early 1999, after the1998 U.S. embassy bombings inNairobi andDar es Salaam.[45]
In 1997, Mohammed moved his family fromIran toKarachi, Pakistan.[46] That year, he tried unsuccessfully to join mujahideen leaderIbn al-Khattab inChechnya, another area of special interest to Mohammed. Unable to travel to Chechnya, he returned to Afghanistan. He ultimately accepted bin Laden's invitation to move toKandahar and join al-Qaeda as a full-fledged member. Eventually, he became leader of al-Qaeda's media committee.[citation needed]
The first hijack plan that Mohammed presented to the leadership of al-Qaeda called for several airplanes on both US east and west coasts to be hijacked and flown into targets. His plan evolved from an earlier foiled plot known as the Bojinka plot (see above). Bin Laden rejected some potential targets suggested by Mohammed, such as theU.S. Bank Tower in Los Angeles,[47] as he wished to simplify the attacks.[48]
In late 1998 or early 1999, bin Laden approved for Mohammed to organize the plot.[45] Meetings in early 1999 took place with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,Osama bin Laden, and his military chief,Mohammed Atef.[45] Bin Laden led the plot and provided financial support.[45] He was also involved in selecting the participants, including choosingMohamed Atta as the lead hijacker.[49] Khalid Sheikh provided operational support, such as selecting targets and helping arrange travel for the hijackers.[45] Atef directed the hijackers' actions.[50]
After Atta was chosen as the leader of the mission, "he met with Bin Laden to discuss the targets: theWorld Trade Center, which represented the U.S. economy;the Pentagon, a symbol of the U.S. military; and theU.S. Capitol, the perceived source of U.S. policy in support of Israel. TheWhite House was also on the list, as Bin Laden considered it a political symbol and wanted to attack it as well." If any pilot could not reach his intended target, he was to crash the plane.[51]
According to testimony byPhilip Zelikow, bin Laden was motivated by a desire to punish the USA for supporting Israel and wanted to move up the attack date. Mohammed argued for ensuring the teams were prepared:
[Bin Laden] allegedly told KSM it would be sufficient simply to down the planes and not hit specific targets. KSM stood his ground, arguing that the operation would not be successful unless the pilots were fully trained and the hijacking teams were larger.[52]
In a 2002 interview withAl Jazeera journalistYosri Fouda, Mohammed admitted that he andRamzi bin al-Shibh were involved in the "Holy Tuesday operation".[53] ("Holy Tuesday operation" was the terrorists' code name for the 9/11 attacks, which took place on a Tuesday.)[54] KSM, however, disputes this claim via his Personal Representative: "I never stated to the Al Jazeera reporter that I was the head of the al-Qaeda military committee."[55]
In another interview, in April 2002, with Yosri Fouda, Mohammed and al-Shibh described the preparations for 9/11 attacks and said that they first thought of "striking at a couple of nuclear facilities" in the U.S. but then "it was eventually decided to leave out nuclear targets for now."[56]
According to aCNN interview with intelligence expertRohan Gunaratna, "Daniel Pearl was going in search of the al-Qaeda network that was operational in Karachi, and it was at the instruction of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that Daniel Pearl was killed."[57] On 12 October 2006,Time magazine reported that "KSM confessed under CIA interrogation that he personally committed the murder."[58] On 15 March 2007,the Pentagon stated that Mohammed had confessed to the murder.[59] The statement quoted Mohammed as saying, "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the AmericanJew, Daniel Pearl, in the city ofKarachi, Pakistan. For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head."[60] This confession was gained under torture, and Mohammed listed many other crimes at the same time.[10][9]
According to an investigative report published in January 2011 byGeorgetown University, theFederal Bureau of Investigation usedvein matching to determine that the perpetrator in the video of the killing of Pearl was most likely Mohammed, notably through identifying a "bulging vein" running across his hand.[61] Concerned that the confession obtained throughwaterboarding would not hold up in court, federal officials used this forensic evidence to bolster their case.[62]
On 11 September 2002, members of PakistaniInter-Services Intelligence (ISI) claimed to have killed or captured Sheikh Mohammed during a raid inKarachi that resulted in bin al-Shibh's capture. This claim was then subsequently proven as baseless.[63]
Mohammed was captured inRawalpindi, Pakistan (about 20 kilometres southwest of Islamabad), on 1 March 2003, by the Pakistani ISI, possibly in a joint action with the CIA'sSpecial Activities Division paramilitary operatives[64] and officers of the AmericanDiplomatic Security Service. He has been in U.S. custody since that time. Initially held in the CIA'sSalt Pit (Cobalt) prison inAfghanistan, after just a "few minutes" of questioning atCobalt, he was subject to "enhanced interrogation techniques." He was slapped, grabbed in the face, placed instress positions, placed in standingsleep deprivation, doused with water, and subjected torectal rehydration multiple times, without a determination of medical need.[65]
TheInternational Red Cross andHuman Rights Watch consider that the harsh interrogation techniques, includingwaterboarding, which he received from U.S. agents amount totorture.[66][67] Mohammed was also subject tosleep deprivation for a period of7+1⁄2 days, during much of which he was forced to stand.[68]
According to later reports, Mohammed initially told American interrogators he would not answer any questions until he was provided with a lawyer, which was refused. He claims to have been kept naked for more than a month during his isolation and interrogations, and said he was "questioned by an unusual number of female handlers".[69]
A CIA document reveals thatJane Harman (D-CA) andPorter Goss (R-FL) of theHouse Intelligence Committee were briefed on 13 July 2004, by the CIAdeputy director for operationsJames Pavitt, General Counsel Scott Muller, andCIA Inspector GeneralJohn L. Helgerson on the status of the interrogation process of Mohammed.[70] The document states:
... the CIA was seeking renewed policy approval from the NSC Principals to continue using theenhanced interrogation techniques.[70]
On 12 October 2004,Human Rights Watch reported that 11 suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, had "disappeared" to a semi-secret prison inJordan, and may have been tortured there under the direction of the CIA.[71][72] At the time, Jordanian and American officials denied those allegations.[73][74][75]
In October 2006, Mohammed described his mistreatment and torture in detention, including the waterboarding, to a representative of theInternational Committee of the Red Cross. Mohammed said that he had provided a lot of false information, which he had supposed the interrogators wanted to hear, in order to stop the mistreatment.[76] During his 2006 interview with theInternational Red Cross, Mohammed claimed to have been waterboarded in five different sessions during the first month of interrogation in his third place of detention.[76][77]
During 2003, Mohammed was held at a secret CIA prison, orblack site, inPoland, where the CIAwaterboarded him at least 183 times.[7] He was then transferred to another secret CIA prison inRomania.[78] While the Justice Department memos did not explain exactly what the numbers represented, a U.S. official with knowledge of the interrogation programs explained the 183 figure represented the number of times water was applied to the detainee's face during the waterboarding sessions, rather than separate sessions.[79]
In September 2006, the U.S. government announced it had moved Mohammed from a secret CIA prison (orblack site) to military custody at theGuantanamo Bay detention camp.[80] On 6 September 2006, United States presidentGeorge W. Bush confirmed, for the first time, that theCIA had held "high-value detainees" for interrogation in secret prisons around the world.[81] He also announced that fourteen senior captives, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were being transferred from CIA custody, to military custody, atGuantanamo Bay detention camp and that these fourteen captives could now expect to face charges before Guantanamo military commissions.[82]
TheDepartment of Defense announced on 9 August 2007, that all fourteen of the "high-value detainees" who had been transferred to Guantanamo from the CIA'sblack sites, had been officially classified as "enemy combatants".[83] Although judgesPeter Brownback andKeith J. Allred had ruled two months earlier that only "illegal enemy combatants" could face military commissions, the Department of Defense waived the qualifier and said that all fourteen men could now face charges beforeGuantanamo military commissions.[84][85]
In March 2007, after four years in captivity, including six months of detention and alleged torture atGuantanamo Bay, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as it was claimed by aCombatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing[86] in Guantanamo Bay, confessed to masterminding the 11 September attacks, theRichard Reid shoe bombing attempt to blow up an airliner over the Atlantic Ocean, theBali nightclub bombing inIndonesia, the1993 World Trade Center bombing and other various foiled attacks.[87] "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z", Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said in a statement read during a Combatant Status Review Tribunal at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[88]
According to the "unclassified summary of evidence" presented during the CSRT hearing, a computer hard drive seized during the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed contained the following:
At the hearing, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said the computer belonged not to him, but toMustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, arrested together with him.[89]
On 5 February 2008, the CIA directorMichael Hayden told a Senate committee that his agents had usedwaterboarding on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.[90] In June 2008, aNew York Times article, citing unnamed CIA officers, claimed that Mohammed had been held in ablack site or secret facility inPoland nearSzymany Airport, about 100 miles north ofWarsaw. There he was interrogated under waterboarding before he began to "cooperate".[91]
In 2009, Mohammed described his actions and motivations in a document publicly released and known asThe Islamic Response to the Government's Nine Accusations.[92] On 9 September 2009, photographs of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed andAmmar al Baluchi were published on the Internet and widely in US and international media.[93][94]
In 2009, the French government decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammedin absentia on terrorism charges with respect to theGhriba synagogue bombing on theTunisian island ofDjerba in 2002, which killed 14 German tourists, five Tunisians and two French nationals. They intended to charge him along with the captured German nationalChristian Ganczarski and Tunisian Walid Nawar.[95] French judges later decided to separate Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's case from those of Ganczarski and Nawar and try him separately at a later date.[96]
In April 2011, the British newspaperThe Telegraph said it receivedleaked documents regarding the Guantanamo Bay interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The documents cited Mohammed as saying that, ifOsama bin Laden is captured or killed by theCoalition of the Willing, an al-Qaedasleeper cell would detonate a "weapon of mass destruction" in a "secret location" in Europe, and promised it would be "a nuclear hellstorm".[97][98][99][100][101][102]
In January 2014, a 36-page "nonviolence manifesto" written by KSM was declassified and released by the US government. The title is "Khalid Sheikh Mohammad's Statement to the Crusaders of the Military Commissions in Guantanamo."[103] The document outlines 3 parts, but appears to be just the first section, describing "the path to happiness." The subject writes to his captors and appears interested in converting his wider audience to Islam. The notes contain eight books with three Western authors and penciled initials with the date 31 October 2013.[104]
In November 2014, a Turkish manufacturer of over-the-counterhair removal cream was found to be using an image of a disheveled Mohammed in adverts for their product.[105][106]
Ali Khan, the father ofMajid Khan, another one of the 14 "high-value detainees", released an unsubstantiated affidavit on 16 April 2006, that reported that interrogators subjected Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's young children to abusive interrogation.[107][108][109]
Khan's affidavit quoted another of his sons, Mohammed Khan:[110]
The Pakistani guards told my son that the boys were kept in a separate area upstairs, and were denied food and water by other guards. They were also mentally tortured by having ants or other creatures put on their legs to scare them and get them to say where their father was hiding.
In March 2007, Mohammed testified before a closed-door hearing in Guantanamo Bay. According to transcripts of the hearing released by the Pentagon, he said, "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z." The transcripts also show him confessing to:
On 15 March 2007,BBC News reported that "Transcripts of his testimony were translated from Arabic and edited by the U.S. Department of Defense to remove sensitive intelligence material before release. It appeared, from a judge's question, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had made allegations of torture in US custody." In the Defense Department transcript, Mohammed said his statement was not made underduress but Mohammed and human rights advocates have alleged that he was tortured. CIA officials have previously toldABC News that "Mohammed lasted the longest under waterboarding, two and a half minutes, before beginning to talk."[112] Legal experts say this could taint all his statements. Forensic psychiatristMichael Welner, M.D., an expert in false confessions, observed from the testimony transcript that his concerns about his family may have been far more influential in soliciting Mohammed's cooperation than any earlier reported mistreatment.[113]
One CIA official cautioned that "many of Mohammed's claims during interrogation were 'white noise' designed to send the U.S. on wild goose chases or to get him through the day's interrogation session." For example, according toMike Rogers, a former FBI agent and the topRepublican on the terrorism panel of theHouse Intelligence Committee, he admitted responsibility for the Bali nightclub bombing, but his involvement "could have been as small as arranging a safe house for travel. It could have been arranging finance." Mohammed also made the admission that he was "responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center Operation," which killed six and injured more than 1,000 when a bomb was detonated in an underground garage, Mohammed did not plan the attack, but he may have supported it.Michael Welner noted that by offering legitimate information to interrogators, Mohammed had secured the leverage to provide misinformation as well.[114]
As an example of this the article discloses that although theGeorge W. Bush administration made claims that the water-boarding (simulated drowning) of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced vital information that allowed them to break up a plot to attack theU.S. Bank Tower (formerly Library Tower and First Interstate Bank World Center) in Los Angeles in 2002, this has been proven to be untrue. In 2002, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was busy evading capture in Pakistan.[115] The claims by former Attorney GeneralMichael Mukasey and former CIAdirector of the National Clandestine Service, Jose Rodriguez, that the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced the most significant lead in finding Osama bin Laden was rejected by the late U.S. SenatorJohn McCain (R-AZ), "The trail to bin Laden did not begin with a disclosure from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times ... not only did the use of 'enhanced interrogation techniques' on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed not provide us with key leads on bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmed; it actually produced false and misleading information."[116][117]
In a 29 September 2006, speech, Bush stated:
Once captured, Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi bin al Shibh, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were taken into custody of the Central Intelligence Agency. The questioning of these and other suspected terrorists provided information that helped us protect the American people. They helped us break up a cell of Southeast Asian terrorist operatives that had been groomed for attacks inside the United States. They helped us disrupt an al-Qaeda operation to develop anthrax for terrorist attacks. They helped us stop a planned strike on a U.S. Marine camp in Djibouti, and to prevent a planned attack on the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, and to foil a plot to hijack passenger planes and to fly them into Heathrow Airport and London's Canary Wharf.[118]
Mohammed has made at least 31 confessions:[119]
After Mohammed arrived at Guantanamo, a team of FBI and military interrogators tried to elicit from him the same confessions that the CIA had obtained about the 9/11 plot, but by using only legal means of interrogation. By 2008, the Bush administration believed that this so-called "Clean Team" had compiled sufficient evidence to charge Mohammed and the others with capital murder.[120]
On 11 February 2008, theUnited States Department of Defense charged Mohammed,Ramzi bin al-Shibh,Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi,Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali andWalid Bin Attash for the 11 September 2001 attacks under themilitary commission system, as established under theMilitary Commissions Act of 2006. They have reportedly been charged with the murder of almost 3,000 people, terrorism andproviding material support for terrorism and plane hijacking; as well as attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury and destruction of property in violation of the law of war. The charges against them list 169 overt acts allegedly committed by the defendants in furtherance of the 11 September events.[121]
The charges include 2,973 individual counts of murder—one for each person killed in the 9/11 attacks.[122] The prosecution is seeking thedeath penalty, which would require the unanimous agreement of the commission judges.[121]
Human rights groups, includingAmnesty International,Human Rights Watch and theCenter for Constitutional Rights, and U.S. military defense lawyers have criticised the military commissions for lacking due process for a fair trial. Critics generally argue for the trials to be held in afederal district court, with defendants treated as criminal suspects, or bycourt-martial as a prisoner under theGeneva Conventions, which prohibit civilian trials for prisoners of war.[123] Mohammed could face the death penalty under any of these systems.
Mohammed, in a letter submitted to the court on 26 July 2019, communicated the willingness to help the 9/11 attack victims and their families in their lawsuit against Saudi Arabia in exchange for the elimination of his death sentence.[124]
The case is progressing through the legal system. In August 2019, the trial date was tentatively set for 11 January 2021, by Judge W. Shane Cohen,[125][126][127][128][129] but this date was postponed on 18 December 2020, due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.[13] Mohammed's trial restarted on 7 September 2021.[14]
On 31 July 2024, a guilty plea was reached with U.S. officials, which spared him from the death penalty in exchange for life in prison atADX Florence.[130] However, the plea deal was rescinded by Defense SecretaryLloyd Austin two days later.[18][131] The plea deal was reinstated in November 2024, since the defense secretary did not have the required authority to revoke them and furthermore acted too late according to a military judge.[132]
In July 2025 the plea deal was voided by a D.C. appeals court in a 2–1 ruling.[133]
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has participated as a witness in the trials of two alleged al-Qaeda members,Zacarias Moussaoui andSalim Hamdan.Los Angeles Times reporter Richard Serrano wrote:
"In 2006, his interrogation summaries were read aloud in the capital murder trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, and Moussaoui was spared the death penalty. Two years later, different Mohammed statements were read in a military commission trial, or tribunal, that led to the release from Guantanamo Bay of Osama bin Laden's chauffeur, Salim Hamdan."[134]
Stanley Cohen, an attorney forSulaiman Abu Ghaith, requested to interview Mohammed, who they described as "the most qualified person alive" to assist in Abu Gaith's defense. Mohammed, through his attorney David Nevin, agreed to be interviewed, but only "in the absence of government personnel whether physically present or by listening or recording remotely."[134]
Mohammed instead drafted a 14-page statement response to 451 interrogatories submitted by Cohen.[135] In the response, Mohammed called Abu Ghaith, a "pious man" and "spellbinding speaker" who, to the best of his knowledge, did not play any military role in al-Qaeda operations and had no military training. Mohammed argued that Western foreign policy has been hypocritical in that it allowed for the rise of the Mujahideen in the Soviet War, but that Western media has since branded the Mujahideen "terrorists" or "foreign fighters". He further claimed that the Taliban's strict Islamic rule had restored security to Afghanistan in the 1990s.[136] U.S. District JudgeLewis A. Kaplan ruled that neither Mohammed's statement nor testimony were relevant to Abu Ghaith's trial, and thus inadmissible.[137]
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)Mohammed is believed to have been born in either 1964 or 1965 in Kuwait into a family originally from the Pakistani province of Baluchistan
In January 1996, well aware that U.S. authorities were chasing him, he leftQatar for good and fled to Afghanistan, where he renewed his relationship with Rasul Sayyaf.9
A senior al-Qaeda commander claimed that the terrorist group has hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe which will be detonated if Bin-Laden is ever caught or assassinated. The US authorities uncovered numerous attempts by al-Qaeda to obtain nuclear materials and feared that terrorists have already bought uranium. Sheikh Mohammed told interrogators thatal-Qaeda would unleash a 'nuclear hellstorm'.
Media related toFIle:ISN 10024, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Guantanamo detainee assessment.pdf at Wikimedia Commons{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Yıldız said the company had discovered the image on İnci Sözlük, a Turkish online social community website that can be described as Turkey's answer to 4chan.org. "Several popular caps [humorously captioned images] were produced with his photo. Most were related to insomnia," he added.
Turkey-based Epila featured a picture in its ad of the infamous former Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed shortly after he was captured in 2003 — and the best part is that a spokesman for the cosmetics company said in a statement, "We didn't know that he was a terrorist."
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