Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Who is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a militant held in U.S. military custody in Guantánamo Bay for alleged acts of terrorism including the mass murder of civilians. He was identified as "the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks" by the 9/11 Commission Report.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was allegedly a member of Osama bin Laden's terrorist al-Qaeda organization, leading al-Qaeda's propaganda operations from around 1999 until late 2001. He is alleged to have confessed under torture by United States agents to a role in many of the most significant terrorist plots over the last twenty years, but the means of interrogation put his confession into question.

In 2003 Mohammed was captured in hiding in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, by a combined force of members of the CIA and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency of Pakistan, and transferred to U.S. CIA custody. In 2006 he was transferred to military custody and Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In March 2007, through the use of enhanced interrogation techniques, Mohammed confessed to masterminding the September 11 attacks, the Richard Reid shoe bombing attempt to blow up an airliner, the Bali nightclub bombing in Indonesia, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the murder of Daniel Pearl, and various foiled attacks, as well as numerous other crimes. He was charged in February 2008 with war crimes and murder by a U.S. military commission at Guantanamo Bay detention camp and faces the death penalty if convicted. In 2012, a former military prosecutor criticized the proceedings as insupportable due to confessions gained under torture.