Published Sep 7, 2026, 5:00 AM EDT
A military judge barred Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s 2007 FBI confession, raising new questions about torture, evidence and the 9/11 trial.
Days before the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, a military judge excluded what prosecutors called their best account from the man accused of planning them. Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Schrama ruled Aug. 28 that statements Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave FBI agents at Guantanamo Bay in January 2007 were involuntary, according to CBS News. The ruling suppresses the confession; it does not dismiss the charges or decide Mohammed’s guilt. He and three co-defendants still face a capital military commission now scheduled to begin in June 2028.
Why the FBI Interview Failed
Mohammed’s disputed confession came from four days of FBI questioning roughly four months after years of captivity in CIA black sites. Prosecutors argued that the new questioners, passage of time and conventional interview methods created a clean break. They said agents told Mohammed he did not have to talk and allowed him to control the interviews’ pace and length. Schrama found no genuine break. The FBI sessions occurred in a former CIA black-site compound at Guantanamo, preserving what he called the “coercive psychological pressure” created during more than three years of CIA custody.
