AL P
03-15-2007, 11:14 AM
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/15/guantanamo.mohammed/index.html
Tools: Save | Print | E-mail | Most Popular
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: I beheaded American reporter
POSTED: 12:04 p.m. EDT, March 15, 2007
Story Highlights• Mohammed: "I decapitated ... the American Jew, Daniel Pearl"
• Pentagon delayed the report to inform Pearl's family
• Mohammed: "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z"
• Also admits 29 other terrorist acts, including plans to kill President Carter
From Mike Mount
CNN
Adjust font size:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told a U.S. military tribunal he personally beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002, the Pentagon revealed Thursday.
"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," said a Pentagon transcript of Saturday's hearing. "For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head."
The admission was part of testimony that was originally removed from a Pentagon transcript of Mohammed's tribunal at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He also said he was the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, attacks.
"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z," Mohammed said through a military representative.
During the hearing, Mohammed also acknowledged he planned, financed or ran training for a catalogue of high-profile terrorist attacks, including operations to assassinate several U.S. presidents and to destroy world-famous landmarks such as Chicago's Sears Tower, the Panama Canal and London's Big Ben.
He said he was behind Richard Reid's attempted shoe bombing of an airliner over the Atlantic, the Bali, Indonesia, nightclub bombing and the 1993 World Trade Center attack. (Read transcript (PDF))
Mohammed's admission about the Pearl decapitation had been removed from the tribunal's original transcript because the description of the slaying was so specific and graphic that authorities wanted to contact Pearl's family before releasing details, said Pentagon officials Thursday.
Pearl, 38, the Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief, was taken hostage in Pakistan in January 2002. A videotape of Pearl's slaying was distributed, but the face of the killer who slit Pearl's throat could not be seen.
Mohammed takes responsibility for 30 operations, the transcript shows. Mohammed also said he is partially responsible for an assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II while he was visiting the Philippines.
In the transcript, Mohammed acknowledged his role as top lieutenant to Osama bin Laden and likened himself to a revolutionary George Washington, although the document's verbatim translation isn't always clear. (Watch why Mohammed compares himself to Washington )
"If now we were living in the Revolutionary War and George Washington he being arrested through Britain," it reads. "For sure he, they would consider him enemy combatant."
Mohammed: Sorry I killed kids
He made no apologies for what he has done, but he did express remorse for the death of children in the September 11 attacks.
"I don't like to kill people," he said. "I feel very sorry they been killed kids in 9/11."
Transcripts of two other detainees considered "high-value" by the U.S. government -- Abu Faraj al-Libi (transcript (PDF)) and Ramzi Binalshibh (transcript (PDF)) -- were also issued Wednesday. Their hearings were held Friday. The three are part of a group of 14 detainees once held in secret CIA prisons but moved to Guantanamo Bay by President Bush in September.
All three hearings were held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo.
The three-member military panel hearings, unlike similar hearings in the past, were closed to the media and to the detainees' lawyers because of fears the detainees might divulge classified information, according to Pentagon officials.
Officials have said the hearings would last between two and three hours each, but it could take days or weeks to know what transpired, because the findings must be approved by higher military authorities.
The 14 detainees have been given military advisers but they are offering no legal assistance. Detainees are also given only an unclassified summary of the evidence against them but are allowed to have witnesses called in from out of the country to testify in their favor.
The hearings, called combatant status review tribunals, determine whether a detainee should be classified as an enemy combatant by the president to make them eligible for a military trial.
The hearings for the 14 are expected to last through April, according to Pentagon officials.
Pentagon officials said a total of six high-value detainees have now gone through these hearings. The names of the three others and the transcripts of their hearings have not yet been released.
Tools: Save | Print | E-mail | Most Popular
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: I beheaded American reporter
POSTED: 12:04 p.m. EDT, March 15, 2007
Story Highlights• Mohammed: "I decapitated ... the American Jew, Daniel Pearl"
• Pentagon delayed the report to inform Pearl's family
• Mohammed: "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z"
• Also admits 29 other terrorist acts, including plans to kill President Carter
From Mike Mount
CNN
Adjust font size:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Admitted 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told a U.S. military tribunal he personally beheaded Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002, the Pentagon revealed Thursday.
"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," said a Pentagon transcript of Saturday's hearing. "For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head."
The admission was part of testimony that was originally removed from a Pentagon transcript of Mohammed's tribunal at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He also said he was the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, attacks.
"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z," Mohammed said through a military representative.
During the hearing, Mohammed also acknowledged he planned, financed or ran training for a catalogue of high-profile terrorist attacks, including operations to assassinate several U.S. presidents and to destroy world-famous landmarks such as Chicago's Sears Tower, the Panama Canal and London's Big Ben.
He said he was behind Richard Reid's attempted shoe bombing of an airliner over the Atlantic, the Bali, Indonesia, nightclub bombing and the 1993 World Trade Center attack. (Read transcript (PDF))
Mohammed's admission about the Pearl decapitation had been removed from the tribunal's original transcript because the description of the slaying was so specific and graphic that authorities wanted to contact Pearl's family before releasing details, said Pentagon officials Thursday.
Pearl, 38, the Wall Street Journal's South Asia bureau chief, was taken hostage in Pakistan in January 2002. A videotape of Pearl's slaying was distributed, but the face of the killer who slit Pearl's throat could not be seen.
Mohammed takes responsibility for 30 operations, the transcript shows. Mohammed also said he is partially responsible for an assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II while he was visiting the Philippines.
In the transcript, Mohammed acknowledged his role as top lieutenant to Osama bin Laden and likened himself to a revolutionary George Washington, although the document's verbatim translation isn't always clear. (Watch why Mohammed compares himself to Washington )
"If now we were living in the Revolutionary War and George Washington he being arrested through Britain," it reads. "For sure he, they would consider him enemy combatant."
Mohammed: Sorry I killed kids
He made no apologies for what he has done, but he did express remorse for the death of children in the September 11 attacks.
"I don't like to kill people," he said. "I feel very sorry they been killed kids in 9/11."
Transcripts of two other detainees considered "high-value" by the U.S. government -- Abu Faraj al-Libi (transcript (PDF)) and Ramzi Binalshibh (transcript (PDF)) -- were also issued Wednesday. Their hearings were held Friday. The three are part of a group of 14 detainees once held in secret CIA prisons but moved to Guantanamo Bay by President Bush in September.
All three hearings were held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo.
The three-member military panel hearings, unlike similar hearings in the past, were closed to the media and to the detainees' lawyers because of fears the detainees might divulge classified information, according to Pentagon officials.
Officials have said the hearings would last between two and three hours each, but it could take days or weeks to know what transpired, because the findings must be approved by higher military authorities.
The 14 detainees have been given military advisers but they are offering no legal assistance. Detainees are also given only an unclassified summary of the evidence against them but are allowed to have witnesses called in from out of the country to testify in their favor.
The hearings, called combatant status review tribunals, determine whether a detainee should be classified as an enemy combatant by the president to make them eligible for a military trial.
The hearings for the 14 are expected to last through April, according to Pentagon officials.
Pentagon officials said a total of six high-value detainees have now gone through these hearings. The names of the three others and the transcripts of their hearings have not yet been released.