http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N11623882.htmPentagon charges alleged 9/11 planner, seeks death
11 Feb 2008 18:01:52 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Adds details, quotes throughout)
By Kristin Roberts
WASHINGTON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Monday charged the alleged planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and five others with murder and conspiracy and asked that they be executed if convicted.
The charges, which must be approved by a Pentagon appointee who oversees the war court at Guantanamo before a trial can be ordered, are the first from that court alleging direct involvement in the 2001 attacks on the United States and the first involving the death penalty.
Mohammed, a Pakistani national better known as KSM, has said he planned every aspect of the Sept. 11 attacks. But his confession could be problematic if used as evidence because the CIA has admitted it subjected him to "waterboarding," a simulated drowning technique.
The procedure is widely considered to be torture and the rules of the court at the Guantanamo prison camp prohibit the use of evidence obtained through torture, as does an international treaty the United States has signed.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann would not rule out the use of evidence gathered during the CIA's interrogation of Mohammed.
"The question of what evidence will be admitted, whether (involving) waterboarding or otherwise, will be decided in the court," he said. snip
The charges sought by the Pentagon include conspiring with al Qaeda to attack and murder civilians and 2,973 counts of murder for those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, when four hijacked passenger planes slammed into New York's World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
Mohammed also said he was responsible for a 1993 attack on New York's World Trade Center, the bombing of a nightclub in Bali, Indonesia, and an attempt to down two U.S. airplanes using shoe bombs. He also confessed to the beheading of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl.