Khalid Sheikh claims to have lied under CIA torture

WASHINGTON: Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, one of the Al Qaeda’s top operatives and self-confessed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, claimed to have lied under torture by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), according to government transcripts released on Monday.

“I just make up stories,” he said in broken English, telling a 2007 military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay of an interrogation session, during which he was asked about the location of Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

“Where is he? [I said] I don’t know. Then he torture me,” Muhammed said.

Muhammad claimed whenever he gave them information, whether true or false, he was left alone, but whenever he refused to cooperate, he was tortured.

Although he said he made false confessions, in the same hearing, Mohammed’s personal representative read a statement in which Muhammad admitted to having taken part in 31 separate terror plots.

Another “high value” detainee, Abu Zubaydah, said he almost died under interrogation.

“After months of suffering and torture, physically and mentally, they did not care about my injuries, which they had inflicted to my eye, stomach, bladder, my left thigh and my reproductive organs. The doctors told me I had nearly died four times,” Zubaydah said. afp

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