The trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others accused of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the USA will begin on January 11, 2021 at the military court in Guantanamo. They are accused of war crimes and terrorism, and are accused of murdering almost 3.000 people, the BBC reports.
The accused five will be the first people to be tried for the terrorist attacks in Washington and Pennsylvania, almost twenty years after the tragic events. If found guilty, they face the death penalty.
Mohammed was captured in 2003, but the trial was postponed several times
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and transferred to the US prison Guantanamo in Cuba, where he was charged. However, the trial was constantly postponed. During an earlier attempt in 2008 to start the trial, he stated that he intended to plead guilty and that he would be happy to receive martyrdom, Indeks writes.
In 2009, then-President Barack Obama's administration, which had promised to close Guantanamo, tried to move the trial to New York, but it was abandoned after Congress rebelled against such a proposal in 2011. The five were then indicted in 2011, which was similar to the one brought during the Bush administration.
Mohammed also responsible for numerous other terrorist attacks
The Pentagon stated that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed himself admitted that he was fully responsible for the 11/2002 attack. US prosecutors alleged that he was involved in numerous other terrorist actions, such as the 1993 bombing of a nightclub in Bali, the XNUMX attack on the World Trade Center and the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl.
Subsequent trial hearings are scheduled for next month. Attorneys for the defendants are seeking to exclude confessions their clients made to the FBI in 2006. They claim they cannot be used in court because of the way they were questioned.
Suspects brutally tortured during interrogation
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed claimed that he was constantly tortured in prison in Cuba. CIA documents confirmed that he was subjected to the "waterboarding" technique, which simulates drowning, 183 times.
Four other suspects - Walid bin Atash, Ramzi bin al-Shib, Ammar al-Baluchi and Mustafa al-Hawsawi - were also interrogated by the CIA before they were handed over to the US military at prisons known as "black sites" located outside US borders. .
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