Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a US-educated Pakistani engineer and avowed jihadist, is one of the masterminds of the September 11, 2001, attacks. The 56-year-old, known as KSM, was the one who initially suggested to Osama bin Laden that he divert the planes and crash them into buildings.
However, this is not the only attack Mohammed has been linked to. In 1993, the jihadist, along with his nephew, detonated a truck bomb in the parking lot of the World Trade Center in the United States. The attack killed six people and injured more than 1,000.
In the years that followed, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s name continued to appear on lists of terrorism suspects arrested around the world. In 1996, Mohammed offered bin Laden information about the September 11 attacks and later helped train and direct some of the hijackers involved in the tragedy that killed 2,976 people.
KSM was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and held in several secret CIA prisons.
In Poland, Mohammed was subjected to various “coercive interrogation methods,” including waterboarding, at least 183 times before the practice was banned by the U.S. government.
The Pakistani even admitted to being responsible for several terrorist attacks, including 9/11 and the Al Qaeda bombings in Bali and Kenya.
In 2006, he was transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he spent years awaiting trial. His defense argued that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s confessions could not be used in court because they were obtained under torture.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-conspirators agreed to plead guilty to 9/11-related crimes to avoid the death penalty.