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Military Judge Excludes Part of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s 9/11 Confession From Evidence
The ruling removes a key prosecution tool after the judge found CIA coercion and Miranda failures tainted the FBI interviews.
On Friday, military judge Michael Schrama ruled that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 2007 confession to FBI agents was involuntary, excluding the statements from evidence in the long-delayed prosecution.
Schrama cited an "unbroken continuation of the CIA's psychological conditioning and severe coercion" during Mohammed's questioning at Guantanamo Bay, and found FBI agents failed to explicitly inform him of his rights to silence or counsel.
Earlier this week, Schrama set a June 5, 2028, trial date for the man accused of killing nearly 3,000 people; this ruling strikes out crucial evidence and could delay proceedings further.
Chief prosecutor Rear Adm. Aaron C. Rugh said prosecutors will review the ruling to decide whether to appeal, with Schrama granting five days to make this decision and an option for five additional days.
Legal proceedings regarding other detainees including Ammar al-Baluchi and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri face similar pretrial challenges over evidence admissibility, while aging survivors of the 2001 attacks question whether they will ever see a verdict.
A U.S. military judge decided that the confessions of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, accused of planning the September 11 attacks, to FBI agents were not given voluntarily and could not be used in the trial. The information was published by The New York Times on Friday (28). The decision represents a defeat for the prosecution. The prosecution considers the testimonies obtained in 2007 at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo, one of the main evidence of t…