Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, 2001

Chalid Sheikh Mohammed ( Arabic خالد شيخ محمد Khalid Shaikh Mohammed , DMG Ḫālid Šaiḫ Muḥammad , other transcription: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed , English Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ; * March 1, 1964 in Balochistan ) is a Pakistani Islamist extremist and is considered the chief planner of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the USA .

Life

Khalid was born in the Pakistani province of Balochistan and lived in Kuwait for a few years in his youth . He joined the Islamist fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood at the age of 16 . Soon after, he returned to Pakistan.

Chalid lived in the United States from 1983 to 1987 . First he attended Chowan College, a small Baptist school in Murfreesboro in the US state of North Carolina . He later moved to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University , where he studied engineering and graduated in 1986. He then worked for electronics and communications companies.

In 1987 he went to Afghanistan to fight with his brothers Zahed, Abed and Aref against the Soviet invasion and occupation. In Afghanistan he met Abdul Rasul Sayyaf , the leader of the Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan (today: Islamic Dawah Organization of Afghanistan), with whom he worked in the following years.

In 1992 he fought with Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Herzegovina against the Serbs and Croats and organized financial support for the fighters. Chalid then moved to Qatar, where he got a government post as a project engineer in the Ministry of Electricity and Water. In addition to his work for the ministry, he covertly continued to support Islamist endeavors.

At the end of 1994 / beginning of 1995, Chalid was in the Philippines . There he used the aliases Abdul Madschid and Salim Ali and presented himself as a Saudi Arabian or Qatari timber exporter. In fact, he was planning together with Ramzi Yousef , the Bojinka plot . The 9/11 Commission Report later stated that Khalid's operations in the Philippines was the first case in which he was actively involved in planning a terrorist attack.

To avoid arrest by US authorities, Chalid moved to Pakistan again in 1996.

In August 2001, Chalid was added to the FBI's terrorist watch list.

Arrest and Confessions

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was arrested by Pakistani security forces in Rawalpindi on March 1, 2003 . In a report published in June 2007 report of the special investigator of suspected Europe , Dick Marty that Khalid may on 7 March 2003 in a secret CIA flight from Kabul to Szymany was transported to Poland. This suspicion is supported by an article in the New York Times dated June 22, 2008, which reported on Khalid's interrogations.

In April 2009, US President Barack Obama published internal CIA papers confirming the existence of a Polish secret prison and showing that Mohammed was tortured by waterboarding a total of 183 times .

During the interrogation, Chalid said he was present at a meeting in Afghanistan around the turn of 1999/2000 with Mohammed Atta , Ziad Jarrah and Marwan Alshehhi , three of the alleged pilots in the September 11 terrorist attacks, and Osama bin Laden .

It is likely that Chalid Sheikh Mohammed is currently at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay , where the US operates the Guantanamo camp for enemy fighters. In March 2007, before the military tribunal in Guantánamo, Chalid assumed responsibility for the attacks on September 11, 2001 - as well as for dozens of other attacks and previously unknown terrorist plans. He accuses the CIA of torture.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed also confessed to having beheaded the American Jew Daniel Pearl in Karachi "with his blessed right hand" . However, this confession is unlikely to be useful in court because it was made using waterboarding .

A study by Georgetown University in January 2011 shows that Chalid Sheikh Mohammed is the murderer of Pearl. By comparing the hands of the murderer with those of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and based on the veins they came to the conclusion that it must be the same person. According to the investigation, the original kidnappers disagreed on what to do with Pearl. At times they thought about a release. According to the findings, the al-Qaida leadership stepped in. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other members took the kidnapping case into their hands, as reported by several witnesses. Mohammed cut Pearl's throat. Due to a mistake by his accomplice in operating the camera, no propaganda film could be made. According to the investigation, in order to get a recording, Mohammed re-enacted the murder and cut off Pearl's head.

According to Georgetown University, 27 people were involved in the abduction and death of Pearl, 14 of whom are at large to date.

Chalid has admitted a total of 31 attacks and attempted attacks. In the event of a planned attack, Pope John Paul II was also supposed to be murdered during a trip to the Philippines ( Operation Bojinka ). Further plans included the assassination of ex-presidents Carter and Clinton. However, the confessions are sometimes viewed with skepticism. It could also be boasting or statements made under torture. The Russian military expert Major General Alexander Vladimirov also doubted the truthfulness of the statements of Khalid Mohammed. He pointed out that the case was being dealt with by a military tribunal at which Khalid Mohammed could be executed immediately after the verdict was pronounced. In that case, independent verification of the confessions would have been impossible.

The lack of public verifiability of the proceedings was so great that even the identity of the accused in the military tribunal could be reasonably questioned. Sheikh Mohammed was said to have not been arrested at the beginning of March 2003, but had been caught with Binalshibh six months earlier and shot. According to a report in the Asia Times Online , the body of his wife was identified at the time. The woman and child were taken into custody by the Pakistani secret service ISI, their whereabouts are unknown today. At the Guantanamo trial, the media were not allowed to take photos or film.

Criminal proceedings

On February 11, 2008, the US government brought charges against Chalid and five others ( Mohammed al-Kahtani , Ramzi Binalshibh , Ali Abdel Asis Ali , Mustafa Ahmed al-Hausaui and Walid bin Attasch ). Chalid was accused, among other things, of being largely responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks . The trial was to take place in a special court known as the military commission at the US Guantanamo Bay prison camp . The death penalty was requested against Khalid and the other defendants .

The indictment was based, among other things, on statements by Chalid made in connection with waterboarding . The special court should first decide to what extent the statements obtained in this way may be used in the proceedings.

The US Department of Defense withdrew its charges against Mohammed al-Kahtani on May 13, 2008. The competent military justice reserves the right to reissue the case, said Pentagon spokesman Jeffrey Gordon on May 13, 2008 in Washington.

On June 5, 2008, the first trial of the remaining five defendants, also known as the "Guantanamo Five" and suspected of masterminding the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, began in the US Guantanamo prison camp in Cuba. There they were supposed to answer before a so-called military commission, a specially established special tribunal of the US Army, for terrorism, conspiracy, murder and damage to property.

In a statement made jointly with four co-defendants on December 8, 2008, Chalid told the court that he would admit his involvement in the attacks of September 11 and that he would forego further defense. However, the process was interrupted because US President Barack Obama wanted the cases to be tried in a civil instead of a military court . However, this failed due to opposition from the US Congress, which refused funding and the relocation of the terror suspects due to security concerns. In 2011, Obama allowed new military trials in Guantánamo and tried to a. to reform the special tribunals to strengthen the rights of the defendants. Forced statements resulting from brutal interrogation methods are no longer permitted.

More than three years after the interruption of the trial, it was formally resumed on May 5, 2012 against Chalid and Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmed al-Hausaui, Ali Abdel Asis Ali and Walid bin Attasch with the reading of the charges before a military tribunal in Guantánamo.

At the beginning of 2014, a letter apparently already written in October 2013 became known in which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed rejected violence as a means of spreading Islam.

On February 9, 2017, a letter from Khalid was published, which he wrote in 2015 to then-US President Barack Obama. In this he affirmed his complicity in the attacks of September 11, 2001 and accused the USA of being the actual perpetrators of Islamic terrorism.

Web links

Commons : Khalid Sheikh Mohammed  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ August 23, 2001: 9/11 Hijackers Alhazmi and Almihdhar Are Finally Added to Terrorist Watch List
  2. ↑ According to BBC News of March 4, 2003, Bush hails 'al-Qaeda killer' arrest
  3. ^ Secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states: second report; Explanatory memorandum . (PDF; 794 kB) on the statements mentioned here, see page 37
  4. ↑ Scott Shane: Inside a 9/11 Mastermind's Interrogation . In: New York Times , June 22, 2008. 
  5. ↑ Torture in Masuria . In: Der Spiegel . No. 18 , 2009, p. 106 ( online ).
  6. ↑ Former al-Qaida chief planner admits to attacks on September 11th . Mirror online. March 15, 2007
  7. ↑ Sheikh Mohammed admits murder of US journalist Pearl . ( Memento of July 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Basler Zeitung , March 15, 2007
  8. ^ Investigation confirms murder by al-Qaeda leaders . Spiegel Online , January 20, 2011
  9. ↑ Hands unmask murderer of Daniel Pearl ; in: 20 minutes from January 20, 2011
  10. ↑ Patrick Martin: Red Cross: Bush and CIA use torture ; World Socialist Web Site, August 10, 2007
  11. ^ Al-Qaida planned attack on Pope John Paul II. Kath.net , March 15, 2007
  12. ↑ Terror confession in Guantánamo . In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , March 15, 2007
  13. ↑ Doubt about 9/11 Confession: Boasting or Tortured Statements? In: Die Presse , March 16, 2007
  14. ↑ Jürgen Elsässer : Two phantoms in the dock . In: Neues Deutschland , June 14, 2008
  15. ^ Prosecution wants six Guantanamo prisoners to be sentenced to death . ( Memento of February 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Welt Online , February 11, 2008
  16. ↑ Pentagon wants six 9/11 defendants to be sentenced to death . Deutsche Welle , February 11, 2008
  17. ↑ AFP, May 13, 2008, 4:57 p.m.
  18. ↑ AFP, June 2, 2008, 6:26 am
  19. ↑ 9/11 Trial: Guantanamo prisoners want to make confessions. In: Zeit Online . December 8, 2008, archived from the original on December 9, 2008 ; Retrieved December 9, 2008 .
  20. ↑ Defendants in the 9/11 trial want to plead guilty. (No longer available online.) In: Yahoo News / AFP. December 8, 2008, archived from the original on December 9, 2008 ; Retrieved December 9, 2008 .
  21. ↑ a b Trial in Guantánamo: Indictment against alleged 9/11 backers ( memento of May 8, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) at tagesschau.de, May 5, 2012.
  22. ↑ Q&A: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's lawyer , Aljazeera, January 16, 2014
  23. ↑ 9/11 mastermind wrote a letter to Obama, the "head of the snake" . The press , February 9, 2017.
personal data
SURNAME Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES خالد شيخ محمد (Arabic); Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh; Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh; Mohammed, Khalid Shaikh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Pakistani terrorist
DATE OF BIRTH March 1, 1964 or April 14, 1965
PLACE OF BIRTH Balochistan