A military judge on Friday ruled that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s 2007 confession to FBI agents was involuntary, excluding the statements from evidence in the long-delayed prosecution stemming from the 2001 terrorist attacks.
Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, the judge overseeing the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, also ruled that statements Mohammed made during subsequent FBI interrogations in 2007 were 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.
Schrama cited several factors in determining that the confession was not voluntary, including what he described as an “unbroken continuation of the CIA’s psychological conditioning and severe coercion” when Mohammed was questioned by FBI agents at Guantanamo Bay.
The judge also found that FBI agents intentionally failed to explicitly tell Mohammed that he had a right to remain silent, consult an attorney, and understand that anything he told them could be used against him at trial.
The ruling strikes out a significant piece of evidence for prosecutors as the case moves toward trial. Earlier this week, Schrama set June 5, 2028, as the start date for Mohammed’s trial, rejecting a prosecution request for a January 2027 trial date and pushing the proceedings into the following summer.
Chief prosecutor Rear Adm. Aaron C. Rugh said prosecutors would review the ruling before deciding whether to appeal.
“The prosecution will review the ruling and will make a decision on whether to appeal in the near future,” Rugh said. Schrama gave prosecutors five days to decide, with the option to request an additional five days.
Mohammed was arrested in 2003 and has spent decades in U.S. custody, including years at CIA “black sites” before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.
His defense attorneys have argued that years of torture, isolation, and solitary confinement by the CIA conditioned Mohammed to tell investigators what they wanted to hear. Mohammed was not permitted to consult an attorney until long after he had confessed and been charged.
A 2014 Senate report on the CIA’s detention and interrogation program found that Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding more than 100 times.
Defense lawyers have argued that the CIA’s treatment of Mohammed undermined the voluntariness of his later statements to the FBI, even though those interrogations took place after he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay.
The prosecution has not yet received similar rulings on the confessions of two other defendants in the Sept. 11 case, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al Hawsawi.
Military judge sets trial for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Mohammed and the other defendants have been awaiting trial for years, with proceedings repeatedly delayed by disputes over evidence, the treatment of detainees in CIA custody, and the admissibility of statements obtained during interrogations.
A proposed plea agreement that would have spared Mohammed the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea was ultimately rejected, leaving the case headed toward trial.