US judge rules alleged 9/11 mastermind's confessions inadmissible

US judge rules alleged 9/11 mastermind's confessions inadmissible A US military judge ruled Friday that confessions made by alleged 9/11 attacks mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to FBI agents are inadmissible and cannot be used against him at trial, The New York Times reported. The ruling comes just before the 25th anniversary of September 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. Prosecutors have already excluded statements that Mohammed made after his capture when he was held by the CIA in overseas prisons and subjected to brutal treatment including waterboarding before his transfer in 2006 to Guantanamo, the Times reported. But the trial judge Lieutenant Colonel Michael Schrama has concluded that Mohammed's subsequent interrogations in 2007 at Guantanamo were also inadmissible. Schrama cited an "unbroken continuation of the CIA’s psychological conditioning and severe coercion," and also found that FBI agents intentionally failed to tell Mohammed that he had a right to be silent and to consult a lawyer. (Reporting by AFP)