JURIST - Paper Chase: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admits planning 9/11 at Guantanamo hearing

[JURIST] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [BBC profile], long thought to be the strategist behind the Sept.11, 2001 attacks, confessed to masterminding the 9/11 attacks during a hearing [JURIST report] Saturday at Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive], according to a transcript [text, PDF] released by the US Defense Department [official website] Wednesday. Mohammed also claimed responsibility for 29 other planned terrorist attacks, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing "from A to Z" and the October 2002 terrorist attack in Bali, Indonesia [Wikipedia backgrounders] which killed many UK and Australian nationals. He also revealed that he had planned to assassinate former President Bill Clinton while he visited the Philippines in 1994.

The admissions came during Mohammed's first military hearing before a Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) [DOD backgrounder] since he was transferred last September from a secret CIA prison overseas [JURIST report] into military custody at Guantanamo Bay. Hearings on whether Mohammed and 13 other top terror suspects [DNI profile, PDF] qualify as "enemy combatants" [CFR backgrounder] began last Friday. Among the other 13 suspects are Abu Zubaydah [BBC profile], Ramzi bin al-Shibh [Wikipedia profile], and Riduan Isamuddin [Wikipedia profile]. The Pentagon also released the transcripts of the hearing of Ramzi bin al-Shibh [text, PDF]. AP has more.

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