Pentagon Releases Audio of Khalid Sheik Mohammad Testimony Thursday , September 13, 2007
Audio portions of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's testimony from his Combatant Status Review Tribunal were released by the Pentagon Thursday.
The audio clips contain admissions by the suspected mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks that he plotted to kill President Clinton and Pope John Paul II.
"I was responsible for the assassination attempt against President Clinton during his visit to the Philippines in 1994 or 1995," Mohammed says in English during his testimony before the tribunal. "I was responsible for the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul the second while he was visiting the Philippines," Mohammed says.
Click here to read a summary of the transcript (pdf). http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/muhammad_sheikh_Khalid.pdf
The Pentagon posted a transcript of 40 minutes of testimony by Mohammed — portions in English and portions in Arabic — but only made available 30 minutes of audio.
Ten minutes of audio from the closed court session at Guantanamo Bay to determine whether Mohammed should be declared an "enemy combatant" were not made available.
The transcript shows the missing audio portions included his confession to killing American journalist Daniel Pearl and his justification for waging jihad against the United States.
Click here to read the full testimony transcript (pdf). http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/muhammad_transcript.pdf
Since the March hearing, Mohammed has been assigned "enemy combatant" status, a classification the Bush administration says allows it to hold him indefinitely and prosecute him at a military tribunal.
The decision to censor portions of the audio came after officials from the CIA, FBI, State Department and others concluded it could be copied and edited by other militants for use as propaganda, officials said.
"It was determined that the release of this portion of the spoken words of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would enable enemies of the United States to use it in a way to recruit or encourage future terrorists or terrorist activities, " Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman said. That could put U.S. lives at risk, he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.