Recent Appearances...

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Hello !
Recent Appearances...

Khalid Sheikh Mohammad

al-Qaeda

India-Pakistan

Captured

20030302

Home Front: WoT

9/11 terrorists to be spared death penalty after judge shoots down Pentagon''s bid to nix plea deals

2025-01-01

[NYPOST] Plea deals for three murderous Moslems behind the 9/11 attacks are back in play after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin lost his bid to nix the disturbing agreements that would spare them the death penalty

A military appeals court on Monday night ruled against Austin's order this summer nullifying plea deals reached with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad

<span class=Inverse>Khalid Sheikh Mohammad</span>

...Mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistain in 2002 and interned at Guantanamo...
, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.

The terrorists' defense attorneys argued that the secretary did not have the authority to overturn the agreements after they were already approved by the top authority of the Guantanamo Bay courts in July.

They further claimed that Austin's order was unlawful interference in the case.

The move clears the way for Mohammad, the criminal mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, and his co-conspirators to plead guilty in a hearing next week.

However,
Caliphornia hasn't yet slid into the ocean, no matter how hard it's tried...
Austin retains the ability to appeal the decision. Reps for the Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Prosecutors offered the deal to bring about an end to the pretrial court proceedings that have dragged on for more than a decade.

The decision comes after a lower court in November ruled that Austin's order came too late — and that the act was beyond his scope of authority.

''We agree with the military judge that the secretary did not have authority to revoke respondents' existing PTAs because the respondents had started performance of the PTAs,'' the three-judge panel said.

The agreements were originally signed by Pentagon official Susan K. Escallier, whom Austin appointed to be in charge of military commissions.

While the initial blow of the plea deals shook many 9/11 victims' loved ones and survivors, some have told The Post that the on-off nature of their status has put them through an emotional roller coaster.

Courtesy of badanov, Regnum adds:

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.

According to the publication, on December 30, the military appeals court overturned the order of US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who in August canceled a pre-trial deal between the prosecution and three terrorists - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi - to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.

The case of conspiracy with the hijackers has been in the pre-trial stage since 2012.

The defendants are suspected of helping the terrorists who carried out the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001.

As reported by the Regnum news agency, the two towers of the World Trade Center collapsed after terrorists flew two hijacked passenger planes into them. As a result, over 2.6 thousand people died.

A previously unknown video of the destruction of the World Trade Center towers on September 11 has emerged. The footage was published by Japanese photographer Kei Sugimoto.

In September 2023, two more victims of the terrorist attacks were identified. The total number of identified victims of the terrorist attacks is 1,649 people. Another 1,104 victims remain unidentified. The names of the identified victims, a man and a woman, are kept secret at the request of their relatives. The victims were identified through DNA analysis of their remains.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Lloyd Austin revokes plea deal with 9/11 plotters

2024-08-03

[X] Responding to this story from two days ago.

Lloyd Austin got this one right.

Thank you. pic.twitter.com/ncMbLCe1vw
— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) August 3, 2024

Courtesy of Skidmark:

Biden-Harris administration backtracks, revokes plea deal for 9/11 terrorists

[FoxNews] A stunning backtrack Friday on the plea deal that Pentagon prosecutors agreed to with three of the terrorists behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks who were awaiting trial in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The deal that stirred national outrage and took the death penalty off of the table has been revoked by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III in a terse memo.

Secretary Austin III is now taking the lead on the case for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad,

…also in our archives as Khalid Sheikh Mohammad

Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.

In his order, Austin relieved the official in charge of the military commission who had signed off on the original plea deals.

"Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024," the letter from the Secretary of Defense reads.

Link

Terror Networks

9/11 mastermind KSM and two other terrorists awaiting trial on Guantanamo Bay strike plea deals

2024-08-01

[NYPOST] The alleged criminal mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks and two other Death Eaters being held on Guantánamo Bay will be spared the death penalty
under a deal with prosecutors, it was revealed Wednesday.

"The Convening Authority for Military Commissions has entered into pretrial agreements with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad

...Mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistain in 2002 and interned at Guantanamo...
, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ’Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, three of the co-accused in the 9/11 case," an Office of Military Commissions (OMC) spokesperson confirmed.

The terror suspects will be spared the death penalty as part of the plea agreement, according to the OMC, which sent a letter to victims’ families Wednesday detailing some of the terms of the negotiations.

"In exchange for removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three Accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet," the letter obtained by The Post reads in part.

The news came as a gut-punch for families who have been holding out hope for justice for more than two decades.

"I am very disappointed. We waited patiently for a long time. I wanted the death penalty — the government has failed us," Daniel D’Allara, whose twin brother, John D’Allara, was one of 23 NYPD cops killed the day of the attacks, told The Post.

OMC said the specific terms and conditions of the pretrial agreements were not immediately available. The deals are set to be officially announced Thursday and the guilty plea hearings could take place as soon as next week, with sentencings likely to happen next summer, according to the letter and sources.

It was not immediately known where the men will be incarcerated following their pleas.

The defendants, including accused plotter Mohammed, stand accused of providing training, financial support and other assistance to the 19 Death Eaters who hijacked passenger jets and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Shanksville, Pa. on Sept. 11, 2001.

The three accused who have accepted a plea deal — along with Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Ramzi Bin al Shibh — were initially jointly arraigned on June 5, 2008, then again on May 5, 2012, the Department of Defense said in a statement.

The OMC said it first entered into plea deal negotiations with the suspects’ defense counsel in March, 2022.

Victims’ families were outraged by the news that the death penalty was no longer on the table for the suspects, whose alleged actions killed nearly 3,000 in the worst terror attack on US soil in American history.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Pentagon prosecutors working on deal to SAVE 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his accomplices from death penalty before his Guantanamo Bay trial

2022-03-16

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]

Guilty pleas in exchange for a life sentence could finally bring to a close the over two decade-long case, the longest ever at the war court

The cases have been bogged down in pretrial proceedings due to the CIA's use of terrorism, but plea agreements could ignite fury from 9/11 families

The al-Qaeda terrorists have been charged with terrorism; hijacking aircraft; conspiracy; murder in violation of the law of war; attacking civilians and more

The five men were allegedly directly involved with hijacking four airplanes and carrying out the coordinated attacks across the US that led to the death of 2,977

They are: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad

...also Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistain in 2002 and interned at Guantanamo...
Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash,

... Walid bin Attash and Waleed bin Attash, a Yemeni who ran an al-Qaeda training camp in Logar, Afghanistan, where two of the 19 hijackers were trained. Bin Attash is believed to have been bin Laden's bodyguard. Authorities say bin Laden selected him as a hijacker, but he was prevented from participating when he was briefly detained in Yemen in early 2001...

Ramzi Bin al-Shibh ,

...a.k.a. Ramzi ibn Al-Shaiba, senior Al Qaeda man involved in the famous Hamburg cell. The unhandsome Yemeni helped find flight schools for the hijackers, helped them enter the United States, and assisted with financing the operation. He was supposed to be a hijacker, but was unable to get a U.S. visa. He also took the lead in a foiled plot to crash aircraft into London's Heathrow Airport...

Ali Abdul Aziz Ali,

...KSM’s nephew and one of KSM’s many relatives in the Karachi cell, also known as Ammar al-Balochi, helped nine of the hijackers travel to the United States and sent them money for expenses and flight training. He was also part of the Heathrow team ...

and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi ,

... also Mustafa al-Hawsawi, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Mustapha Ahmed al-Hawsawi, and no doubt other variations. Saudi Arabian accused of giving financial backing to the group, he testified in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, saying he had seen Moussaoui at an al-Qaeda guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in early 2001, but somehow was never introduced to him or conducted operations with him...

all expected to face the death penalty if convicted

Update from PJ Media at 10:10 a.m. ET

During the Trump administration, prosecutors tried to work out a plea deal that would have sent the plotters to a supermax prison in Florence, Colo. with life sentences. Those negotiations fell through when the prisoners demanded they serve their life sentences in Guantanamo, which is far less restrictive.

Now the Biden administration, the guys that caused the debacle in Afghanistan

Biden administration, the guys that caused the debacle in Afghanistan

...the pack of self-imagined masterminds of strategy and intrigue at the service of the Biden Crime Family and a grateful nation...
is trying once again to settle the legal situation for KSM and the other plotters and has opened negotiations that would give the snuffies life sentences.

Even with successful negotiations, any deal would have to secure the Pentagon’s approval.
Lapdogs Milley and Austin would surely do whatever they're told
Even the suggestion of a deal during the Trump administration enraged then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who complained to Defense Secretary James N. Mattis about the convening authority, Harvey Rishikof. Shortly after that, Rishikof was fired.

Link

India-Pakistan

Man acquitted in Daniel Pearl’s killing moved to Pakistan safe house

2021-03-23

[IsraelTimes] Police say Ahmad Saeed Omar Sheikh, who was on death row for 18 years before being acquitted of murdering the US journalist, transferred for safety reasons.

A Pak-British man who was on death row for 18 years before his acquittal in the 2002 beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl was transferred Monday to a government safe house for security reasons, police said.

Ahmad Saeed Omar Sheikh

...also in our archives as Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh and Ahmed Omar Sheikh. He spent nearly two decades in various Pak government safe houses, protected from being either hanged or transferred to the U.S. for his not-minor role in Israeli-American Daniel Pearl’s heinous murder. He’d been a brilliant but violent lad, growing to be a violent and possibly brilliant man who hit all the jihadi hotspots at their peak: the London School of Economics, Bosnia during their little war, running Al Qaeda’s Afghan training camps, then jailed by India for kidnapping Western tourists in Kashmir for Pakistan’s ISI. He and two Harkat-ul-Mujahideen emirs were traded for the passengers and crew of a hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999, after which he wandered down to Karachi to hang with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s (KSM) gang. This may yet turn out to have been a fatal error...

was handed over to the Punjab
1.) Little Orphan Annie's bodyguard
2.) A province of Pakistain ruled by one of the Sharif brothers
3.) A province of India. It is majority (60 percent) Sikh and Hindoo (37 percent), which means it has relatively few Moslem riots....
Counter-Terrorism department amid tight security, a police brass hat Suhail Sukhera told The News Agency that Dare Not be Named.

Sheikh was moved to his home city of Lahore from the southern port city of Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
. Sukhera provided no further details and only said Sheikh was being kept at a well-guarded place.

Sheikh was acquitted by the Sindh High Court in April 2020 and since then Pearl’s family and Pakistain’s government have been fighting a legal battle to overturn the acquittal. Washington has also expressed its concern over the acquittal of Sheikh.

Sheikh has been in jug despite his acquittal under a special law allowing the government to detain people deemed a security risk.

The transfer comes more than a month after Pakistain’s Supreme Court ordered Sheikh moved to a safe house from a special jail cell for inmates sentenced to death.

Authorities say Sheikh will not be allowed to leave the safe house.

So it’s just like bring in a nicer prison. I can live with that.

Pearl disappeared on January 23, 2002, in Karachi where he was investigating links between Pak terrorist groups and Richard C. Reid, dubbed the "shoe bomber." Reid had attempted to blow up a flight from Gay Paree to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes. Sheikh was convicted of helping lure Pearl to a meeting in Karachi, during which he was kidnapped.

Pearl’s body was discovered in a shallow grave soon after a video of his beheading was delivered to the US consulate in Karachi. The Pentagon in 2007 released a transcript in which Khalid Sheikh Mohammad
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad

Link

India-Pakistan

Pakistan orders man acquitted in Pearl murder off death row and into safe house

2021-02-04

Home again, home again jiggity jig! And thus the ISIS, pretending to be the elected government of Pakistan, protects their lad from the wrath of the stupid Americans.

[IsraelTimes] Pakistain’s Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the Pak-British man acquitted of the 2002 gruesome beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl off death row and moved to a so-called government "safe house."

Ahmad Saeed Omar Sheikh, who has been on death row for 18 years, will be under guard and will not be allowed to leave the safe house, but he will be able to have his wife and children visit him.

"It is not complete freedom. It is a step toward freedom," said Sheikh’s father, Ahmad Saeed Sheikh, who attended the hearing.

The Pakistain government has been scrambling to keep Sheikh in jail since a Supreme Court order last Thursday upheld his acquittal in the death of Pearl, triggering outrage by Pearl’s family and the US administration.

In a final effort to overturn the acquittal, Pakistain’s government as well as the Pearl family filed an appeal to the Supreme Court, asking it to review the decision to exonerate Sheikh of Pearl’s murder. The family’s lawyer, Faisal Siddiqi, however, said such a review had a slim chance of success because the same Supreme Court judges who ordered Sheikh’s acquittal sit on the review panel.

The US government has said that it would seek Sheikh’s extradition if his acquittal is upheld. Sheikh has been indicted in the United States on Pearl’s murder as well as in a 1994 kidnapping of an American citizen in Indian-ruled sector of the divided region of Kashmir
...a disputed territory lying between India and Pakistain. After partition, the Paks grabbed half of it and call it Azad (Free) Kashmir. The remainder they refer to as "Indian Occupied Kashmir". They have fought four wars with India over it, the score currently 4-0 in New Delhi's favor. After 72 years of this nonsense, India cut the Gordian knot in 2019, removing the area's special status, breaking off Ladakh as a separate state, and allowing people from other areas to settle (or in the case of the Pandits, to resettle) there....
. The American was eventually freed.

The order sending Sheikh to a safe house would seem to be a concession to the federal government, as well as the government of southern Sindh province where Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
is the capital. The Sindh government has refused successive orders to release Sheikh, even courting contempt charges from lower courts.

In the government-run safe house, Sheikh will be under a 24-hour guard — often military personnel — and will not be allowed to leave the house. Locations of such safe houses are usually kept secret; Pakistain’s security establishment has several such facilities across the country.

Pearl disappeared on Jan. 23, 2002, in the port city of Karachi where he was investigating links between Pak holy warrior groups and Richard C. Reid, dubbed the "shoe bomber" after his attempt to blow up a flight from Gay Paree to Miami with explosives hidden in his shoes.

Pearl’s body was discovered in a shallow grave soon after a video of his beheading was delivered to the US Consulate in Karachi.

The Pentagon in 2007 released a transcript in which Khalid Sheikh Mohammad
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad

...Mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistain in 2002 and interned at Guantanamo...
, the alleged criminal mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States, said he had killed Pearl.

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl," the transcript quoted Mohammed as saying. Mohammad first disclosed his role while he was held in CIA custody and subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation and other forms of torture. He remains in the US prison in Guantanamo Bay and has never been charged with the journalist’s death.

Sheikh had long denied any involvement in Pearl’s death, but Pakistain’s Supreme Court last month heard that he acknowledged writing a letter in 2019 admitting a minor role — raising hopes for some that he might remain behind bars.

In a series of tweets over the weekend, Pearl’s family urged followers to "call your politicians in Pakistain, in the US, the world to support Danny’s parents," to keep Sheikh behind bars.

Last week’s ruling that exonerated Sheikh also exonerated another three men accused in Pearl’s murder who had been serving life sentences. It wasn’t clear whether they would be freed or also moved to a safe house.

Siddiqi, the Pearl family lawyer, said the original murder trial back in 2002 charged all four as one, which complicated the case and allowed the court to free all if there was doubt about the guilt of even one of the suspects.

Pakistan denies handing over Pearl murder suspect to US

Pakistain is not handing over the prime suspect who was convicted and later acquitted in a murder case of US journalist Daniel Pearl to Washington, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Wormtongue Qureshi
Mehmood <q>Wormtongue</q> Qureshi

...a Pak political shape-changer. He is undistinguished except for his habit of periodically needing to have his lips reattached...
said on Sunday.

He was commenting on reports doing rounds in Islamabad after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken offered to prosecute British-born accused Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh in the US for his "horrific crimes against an American citizen" during a telephone conversation with him on Friday.

"Reports regarding handing over of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh to the US are baseless," a private TV channel cited the foreign minister as saying. "I spoke to the US secretary of state, who expressed his concern over the Supreme Court judgement," he said while referring to the acquittal of all four accused, including Sheikh by the apex court on Thursday. "I told him [Blinken] that our courts are independent," he went on saying.

However,
a woman is only as old as she admits...
Qureshi added that the government has filed a review petition against Sheikh’s acquittal, which will be heard on Monday by the same court. Pearl’s parents have also announced joining the review proceedings.

Link

-PC Follies

American taxpayers have spent jaw-dropping amount on keeping 9/11 mastermind alive

2021-02-01

[FoxNews] Guantanamo Bay has grown into what seems to be the most expensive prison on earth

Built nearly 18 years ago to detain suspected terrorists on a U.S. naval base in Cuba, Guantanamo Bay has grown into what seems to be the most expensive prison on earth.

The U.S. government has spent an estimated $161.5 million housing the suspected mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks — Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. And up until Saturday, Mohammed was to receive a coronavirus vaccine so that he could be tried and put to death, if convicted.
A .22 cartridge costs 2 cents (when you could buy ammo) and makes for a most satisfying conclusion.
Captured in 2003, Sheikh Mohammed confessed to being a mastermind behind some of the most prolific terror attacks in the past few decades, most notably the 9/11 attacks.

Mohammed's death penalty trial was originally set for Jan. 11, 2021, but it was delayed due to the pandemic.
Or Joe Biden, like his sire Barack, will find a way to trade him and many others for some American traitor.
A lack of vaccinations had reportedly made it difficult for federal prosecutors to move forward with war crimes hearings at the base, which is why Terry Adirim, the principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for health affairs under President Biden, signed an order Jan. 27 to vaccinate the suspected terrorists, a Pentagon spokesperson told the New York Post. Two defense officials confirmed the plan to Fox News.

The Defense Department reversed course Saturday. "No Guantanamo detainees have been vaccinated," Defense Department press secretary John Kirby tweeted. "We're pausing the plan to move forward, as we review force protection protocols. We remain committed to our obligations to keep our troops safe."

It's not exactly clear how much the federal government spends housing its Gitmo prisoners, but it's somewhere between $9.5 and $13 million per prisoner, per year. The prison currently has 40 inmates. That's compared to $78,000 spent per inmate at a "supermax" prison in Florence, Colo., home to some of the highest-risk prisoners in the U.S.

Using the $9.5 million figure NPR reached in a 2020 report, U.S. spending in the 17 years Mohammed has spent at the prison has topped $161 million.

Guantanamo has reportedly cost U.S. taxpayers over $6 billion since its inception. Included in that figure are charter planes to and from the island with few passengers, hundreds of thousands' worth of government devices that are destroyed each year to spills of classified information, Pentagon-funded defense attorneys priced at half a million dollars per year and total legal costs amounting to $60 million, even though Guantanamo has only ever had one finalized conviction.

But the New York Times tally edges the number up to $13 million per prisoner, per year. "I think it's crazy," former President Trump said of the cost.

Link

Afghanistan

Eight Security Force Members Killed in Nangarhar Blast: Official

2021-01-31

[ToloNews] Eight security force members were killed in a boom-mobile explosion that targeted a civil order forces unit in Shirzad district of the eastern province of Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
on Saturday morning, the provincial governor’s office confirmed.

The civil order forces unit operates under the Afghan National Army, according to local officials.

The explosion happened in the Gandumak area in Shirzad district, a statement by the Nangarhar governor’s office read.

Meanwhile,
...back at the pond, Gloria slowly backed away from the eight-foot bull frog. If the creature croaked she would surely be deafened...
Obaidullah Shinwari, the deputy head of the provincial council in Nangarhar, said that at least 14 security force members were killed in the attack.

Taliban
Taliban

...Arabic for students...
grabbed credit for the attack.

An Nahar adds:

The eight were killed when the bomber hit the base with a Humvee, the office of Nangarhar's governor said in a statement.

The deputy head of Nangarhar provincial council, Ajmal Omar, confirmed the attack but put the number of dead soldiers at 15 with five maimed.

Taliban front man Zabihullah Mujahid said his group had carried out the attack.

The governor's office said security forces had seized another vehicle loaded with explosives near the city of Jalalabad, the capital of Nangarhar.

Nangarhar province has seen several recent deadly attacks carried out by the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....

Link

India-Pakistan

US condemns Pakistan’s overturning of death sentence in Daniel Pearl murder

2020-04-03

[IsraelTimes] The United States criticizes a Pak court’s overturning of a death sentence

...the barbaric practice of sentencing a murderer to be punished for as long as his/her/its victim is dead...
handed down over the gruesome killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl, calling the decision an "affront."

"The overturning of the convictions for Daniel Pearl’s murder is an affront to victims of terrorism everywhere," says Alice Wells, the top US diplomat for South Asia.

She welcomes indications that Pak prosecutors will appeal the decision on British-born terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh.

Mr. Sheikh, after all, only helped deliver Daniel Pearl to Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, he didn’t actually help cut off his head. So clearly he is innocent, to a certain kind of mind.

Link

India-Pakistan

Pakistan court overturns conviction in death of Daniel Pearl

2020-04-02

[NBC] KARACHI, Pakistan — A Pakistani court Thursday overturned the murder conviction of a British Pakistani man found guilty of the 2002 kidnapping and killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

Instead, the court found Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh guilty of the lesser charge of kidnapping and sentenced him to seven years in prison.

Pearl disappeared Jan. 23, 2002 in Karachi while researching links between Pakistani militants and Richard C. Reid, who became known as the “shoe-bomber” after he was arrested on a flight from Paris to Miami with explosives in his shoes. Prosecutors said Saeed lured Pearl into a trap by promising to arrange an interview with an Islamic cleric who police believed was not involved in the conspiracy.

One of Saeed's lawyers, Khwaja Naveed, said Saeed could go free unless the government chooses to challenge the court decision. Faiz Shah, prosecutor general for southern Sindh province, said the government will appeal to the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Saeed has already spent 18 years in prison in southern Hyderabad on death row. The seven-year sentence was expected to be counted as time served, said Naveed.

The Sindh High Court also acquitted three others accused in the case: Fahad Naseem, Sheikh Adil, and Salman Saqib, who were earlier sentenced to life in prison. The defendants were also collectively fined $32,000.

Saeed, a former student at the London School of Economics, and the others were convicted in 2002.

A videotape received by U.S. diplomats in February, 2002 confirmed that Pearl, 38, was dead. He had been beheaded.

The Pearl Project, an investigative journalism team at Washington's Georgetown University, carried out a three-year investigation into Pearl's kidnapping and death. They concluded the reporter was beheaded by Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, who was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and later described as the architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Mohammad is a prisoner at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Soon after Pearl disappeared, Pakistani and U.S. news organizations received emails from the previously unknown National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. The group demanded better treatment for Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners at Guantanamo.

FBI agents traced the emails to Saeed, who admitted his role in the kidnapping during his first court appearance but later recanted.

Saeed had been arrested in 1994 by Indian authorities, accused of kidnapping three Britons and an American, who were all freed unharmed, in Indian-ruled Kashmir, Hindu India's only Muslim dominated region.

In 1999, India freed Saeed and two other militants in exchange for the release of 155 passengers and crew aboard an Indian Airlines plane hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan.

The Pearl kidnapping was the first of five attacks against Westerners in Pakistan in 2002. A grenade attack against a Protestant church in Islamabad on March 17 killed five people, including two Americans and the attacker, were killed.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Sept 11 suspect asks that US judge step down, cites evidence destruction

2016-06-02

[DAWN] The United States (US) military judge overseeing the trial of the accused criminal mastermind of the Sept 11 attacks should step down and the case should be scrapped because he effectively conspired with prosecutors to destroy evidence, defence lawyers said in a court filing.

The motion said Judge James Pohl, an Army colonel, and prosecutors had tainted the case against Pakistain-born Khalid Sheikh Mohammad

...Mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. He was captured in Faisalabad, Pakistain in 2002 and interned at Guantanamo....
by keeping defence lawyers from learning that the evidence had been destroyed.

The motion was filed on May 10 and recently cleared for release. It raises a potential hurdle in the slow-moving capital case against Mohammad and four others charged in the hijacked airliner attacks of Sept 11, 2001, in which 3,000 people died.

Pohl, along with prosecutors, "manipulated secret proceedings and the use of secret orders to mislead the defence and unfairly deprive Mr Mohammad" of ways to keep the evidence from being destroyed, the motion said.

Commissions spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Valerie Henderson referred questions to the prosecutor's response, which is expected to be made public in a few days.

Pohl presided over a pretrial hearing on Tuesday in the case at the US Navy prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The filing alleges that Pohl authorised prosecutors to destroy evidence six months after he agreed to a defence request that it be preserved.

Link

Afghanistan

Pakistan says DNA report confirms Mullah Mansoor’s death

2016-05-30

[Khaama (Afghanistan)] The authorities in Pakistain have said DNA report have confirmed that the man killed in a US drone strike was the Taliban supreme leader Mullah Akhtar Mansoor.
We knew he was dead when they named his successor. But this is the Official Verification. Mullah Mansour has departed the building.
According to the local media reports, citing the local authorities, a DNA report said it was definite that the man killed in the US strike on May 21 was Mullah Akhtar Mansour.
He is One with the Ages.
The country’s interior ministry has said the confirmation was made following the DNA matching of DNA samples collected from the charred body against the relative who came forward to claim the remains.
He is no longer oxygen-dependent.
Pakistain’s foreign affairs adviser Sartaj PrunefaceAziz
Problem, not solution

...Adviser to Pak Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on National Security and Foreign Affairs, who believes in good jihadis and bad jihadis as a matter of national policy...
earlier said "All indicators confirm that the person killed in the drone strike was Mullah Akhtar Mansour who was travelling on a fake identity. The DNA test result will be available shortly."
That's the secret: just put on a pair of fake glasses and nobody will recognize you.
The country’s Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar had earlier said the government could not confirm the death without a scientific and legal basis.
He was killed in Pakistain, just like Osama bin Laden. That's where Abu Zubaidah, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad were all captured. The Quetta Shura is located in Pakistain. So is the Haqqani Network. Do we see a pattern here?
Mullah Mansoor was killed in a US drone strike in Balochistan
...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
province of Pakistain in the afternoon of 21st May as he was travelling in a vehicle.
But he was wearing glasses and carrying a Pak passport and ID, so nobody in Pakistain recognized him.

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