Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessions barred, NYT says

A US military judge has ruled that statements made by alleged 9/11 attacks mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to FBI agents cannot be used against him at trial, The New York Times reported.

The ruling comes before the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

Mohammed and three other accused plotters are scheduled to go on trial on June 5, 2028, at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The New York Times said Lieutenant Colonel Michael Schrama found that prosecutors had not proved Mohammed's statements to the FBI were voluntary. It said the ruling had not been immediately released publicly, but that several lawyers who had seen it confirmed its unclassified contents.

Schrama reportedly cited an “unbroken continuation of the CIA’s psychological conditioning and severe coercion” and found that FBI agents intentionally failed to tell Mohammed he had a right to remain silent and consult a lawyer.

Prosecutors had already excluded statements Mohammed made after his capture in Pakistan in March 2003, when he was held by the CIA in overseas prisons and subjected to treatment including waterboarding before his 2006 transfer to Guantanamo, the newspaper reported.

Prosecutors can appeal the ruling. A spokesman for the US military court did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.

Mohammed, also known as KSM, was considered one of Osama bin Laden's top Al-Qaeda lieutenants before his capture. Legal arguments in the 9/11 defendants' cases have focused on whether they can be tried fairly after torture by the CIA.