Recordings show KSM boasting to other detainees about 9-11
AP/Miami Herald:
A new book says Justice Department prosecutors were stunned to learn three years ago that the U.S. military had secretly recorded incriminating comments by alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed to fellow detainees during daily prison yard conversations but was not planning to use them at military tribunals.In “Kill or Capture: The War On Terror And The Soul Of The Obama Presidency,” journalist Daniel Klaidman says Mohammed was caught on tape boasting to other detainees about the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United States.According to the book, Mohammed mentioned specific pieces of evidence, documents and computer files that could be tied directly to him through his voluntary statements to other detainees at the military detention facility in Guantánamo Bay.Justice prosecutors were surprised because civilian prosecutors regularly use the jailhouse statements of inmates against them at trial and because the statements, voluntarily uttered, would allow the government to get around the problem of using statements the detainees made during harsh interrogations that defense lawyers would try to exclude from trial as tainted by torture.Mohammed’s conversations “were intercepted by military spies and mined for intelligence,” Klaidman writes in his new book. “There were hundreds of hours of such recordings, including musings by KSM and other high-value detainees, uttered freely, during unguarded moments.”It is unclear whether the military has changed its mind and now plans to use the recordings against Mohammed at his upcoming military commission trial. On Wednesday, a Pentagon spokesman, Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, declined to comment.Klaidman writes that despite “the potential gold mine” the recordings represented, military prosecutors decided a number of years ago not to use the evidence.
...I don't know what theory would preclude the evidence. A detainee has no expectation of privacy except when he is talking to his lawyer. I would offer it without hesitation and if I were hearing the case I would rule it admissible. I would also have a special recording made to be played on Egyptian TV and radio for all those who claim there is no evidence of al Qaeda involvement in 9-11. One of the leading candidates for President in Egypt has been talking like a truther.
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