The New York Times reported on October 2 and 7 that military judge Michael Schrama, who is presiding over the proceedings against the 9/11 plotters, has also ruled inadmissible the statements made by Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash to the CIA in 2007, on the grounds that they were not made voluntarily.
In al-Hawsawi's case, the judge specified that there was no need to determine whether he had been tortured because, having been shackled and taken to a CIA black site, he had not made his statements freely. As for bin Attash, Schrama did not explicitly refer to torture but rather to coercion. Statements made during a second round of interrogations by the FBI and NCIS were also excluded because the agents had allegedly failed to inform the terrorist that his statements to the CIA could not be used against him. During one of the interrogations, bin Attash had also said that he was very proud to have taken part in planning the attacks.
The prosecution is therefore now facing a 0–5 record of sorts, as the statements made by Ammar al-Baluchi and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (also known by the acronym KSM) had previously been excluded as well. Ramzi bin al-Shibh, the fifth defendant originally included in the proceedings, will instead be tried separately from the other four, as decided by a military judge who had previously handled the case.
In any case, the prosecutors have decided not to appeal the decision to exclude KSM's statements, in order to avoid delaying the trial, which is currently scheduled to begin on June 5, 2028. The only appeal currently pending concerns the reinstatement of al-Baluchi's statements. It remains unclear whether they will also appeal the exclusion of these two latest sets of statements.
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