Judge rules alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's confession inadmissible in trial

A military judge ruled Friday that a confession pertaining to the 9/11 terror attacks in 2001 is inadmissible in an upcoming trial because it was tainted by the suspect being tortured through waterboarding.

The judge, Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, ruled that the alleged mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's confessions to the FBI were not made voluntarily, and that subsequent interrogations in 2007 at Guantánamo were also inadmissible.

“The prosecution has failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Mohammad’s statements to the F.B.I. were voluntarily given,” Schrama wrote in the conclusion of his 45-page ruling, according to the New York Times.

The judge cited several factors in his ruling, including an “unbroken continuation of the C.I.A.’s psychological conditioning and severe coercion” at the time of the questioning in 2007 and that the FBI intentionally failed to tell Mohammed that he had a right to be silent and to consult a lawyer, and that what he confessed could be used against him at a trial.

Mohammed allegedly confessed to planning the 9/11 attacks in a March 2007 statement to the Combatant Status Review Tribunal, saying, “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z. I was the operational director for Sheikh Osama bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up, and execution of the 9/11 operation.”

The ruling comes just days after Schrama scheduled Mohammed's trial and the trial of three other alleged co-conspirators for June 2028.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.