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Will Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, self described 9/11 Mastermind, be sentenced to death?

Will Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, self described 9/11 Mastermind, be sentenced to death?

Asked by: Super Userkruijs in General » Crime
currently Open, suspends 10/31/2025 07:00 (in )

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Background

Accused 9/11 Mastermind to Face Civilian Trial in N.Y.

The Obama administration said Friday that it would prosecute Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, in a Manhattan federal courtroom, a decision that ignited a sharp political debate but took a step toward resolving one of the most pressing terrorism detention issues.

The decision, announced by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., could mean one of the highest-profile and highest-security terrorism trials in history would be set just blocks from where hijackers for Al Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Mr. Holder said he would instruct prosecutors to seek death sentences for Mr. Mohammed and four accused Sept. 11 co-conspirators who would be tried alongside him.

The prospect of prosecuting Mr. Mohammed and Mr. Nashiri has been particularly difficult because their defense lawyers are expected to argue that they were illegally tortured by the Central Intelligence Agency during their confinement. Both were subjected to waterboarding, a controlled drowning technique.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/us/14terror.html?_r=1&hpw

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   Super Userkruijs

“To completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme,” former Vice President Dick Cheney – who supported the use of such methods – said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in 2009. “It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.” Conservative media figures incessantly hyped former Bush administration officials’ at times verifiably false claims about the efficacy of the program. The Bush administration’s trip to the “dark side” provided pundits, op-ed columnists, and other media personalities an endless stream of satisfaction from talking like the greased up protagonists of 1980s action films.

After Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. special forces in Pakistan in 2011, Bush defenders claimed that he had been discovered because the pseudonym of bin Laden’s courier had been acquired through torture. That too, was a false claim – Panetta himself wrote in a letter to Arizona Republican Senator John McCain in 2011 that “we first learned about the facilitator/courier’s nom de guerre from a detainee not in CIA custody in 2002.”

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/cia-lied-about-torture-justify-using-it

   Super Userkruijs

“To completely rule out enhanced interrogation methods in the future is unwise in the extreme,” former Vice President Dick Cheney – who supported the use of such methods – said in a speech to the American Enterprise Institute in 2009. “It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness, and would make the American people less safe.” Conservative media figures incessantly hyped former Bush administration officials’ at times verifiably false claims about the efficacy of the program. The Bush administration’s trip to the “dark side” provided pundits, op-ed columnists, and other media personalities an endless stream of satisfaction from talking like the greased up protagonists of 1980s action films.

After Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. special forces in Pakistan in 2011, Bush defenders claimed that he had been discovered because the pseudonym of bin Laden’s courier had been acquired through torture. That too, was a false claim – Panetta himself wrote in a letter to Arizona Republican Senator John McCain in 2011 that “we first learned about the facilitator/courier’s nom de guerre from a detainee not in CIA custody in 2002.”

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/cia-lied-about-torture-justify-using-it

   Super Userkruijs

A Senate intelligence committee investigation found that the Central Intelligence Agency employed brutal interrogation methods that turned out to be largely useless and then lied about their effectiveness, according to The Washington Post.

As described to the Post, the Senate report contradicts the main defenses of the Bush-era torture program: That harsh methods were needed to produce actionable results, and that the program itself helped save American lives by foiling terror attacks. Instead, the CIA overstated the effectiveness of the program and concealed the harshness of the methods they used. Intelligence breakthroughs credited to the “enhanced interrogation” program by the CIA were instead gleaned through other means, and then used by the agency to bolster defenses of the program. The intelligence committee is set to vote on submitting the report for declassification on Thursday.

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/cia-lied-about-torture-justify-using-it

   Super Userkruijs

From his cell in the heavily guarded prison at Guantanamo Bay, the presumed chief architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist plot is offering to be a key defense witness in what probably will be the only trial in New York of someone charged in connection with the World Trade Center attacks.
This would not be the first time Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has emerged as a star defense witness for members of Al Qaeda. Twice, his words have minimized the role defendants played in the organization's top hierarchy.
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.
This time the stakes are higher. Mohammed agreed in a Jan. 27 letter from his lawyer, which was obtained by The Times, to be interviewed by defense lawyers for Sulaiman abu Ghaith — as long as federal prosecutors and military lawyers were not allowed to monitor the conversation in any way.
Abu Ghaith, the top Al Qaeda propagandist now charged in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, goes on trial in 10 days in federal court in Lower Manhattan. And his chief attorney, Stanley Cohen, has insisted in court documents that Mohammed be allowed to speak in some capacity — in court through a live closed-circuit feed from the U.S. military prison in Cuba, in a taped interview or in a written statement.


http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-ksm-witness-20140213,0,1959026.story

   Super Userkruijs

A senior Pentagon official on Wednesday authorized a new trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four others accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a step that restarts the most momentous terrorism case likely to be held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The suspects were first charged in a military commission in 2008, but the case was suspended when the Obama administration came into office and later moved to have them tried in federal court in New York.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/khalid-sheik-mohammed-to-face-death-penalty-trial/2012/04/04/gIQALLHOvS_story.html

   Super Userkruijs

Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement Monday that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 plotters will be tried in military commissions rather than civilian courts means that KSM might face lethal injection at Guantanamo, and the President might have to personally sign off on his death.

Read more: http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2011/04/05/gitmo-trial-may-mean-obama-will-sign-off-on-ksms-death/#ixzz1IgNQbag2

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