He even boasted that he had personally decapitated Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi, Pakistan. "For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head," he added.
But it's not clear whether Mohammed's confessions, which mirrored those he made after he was waterboarded 183 times by CIA interrogators in 2003, can be used against him in military court. Moreover, now that the Justice Department has transferred his case and that of his four alleged coconspirators to a military commission at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, winning a death-penalty conviction may not come easy.
Under commission rules, Mohammed cannot plead guilty to a crime that carries the death penalty, though he told military authorities at Guantanamo that he hoped to be executed. Experts said a jury of U.S. military officers might be less likely to grant that wish than a jury of citizens in Lower Manhattan, where his trial initially was to have been held and where anger over Sept. 11 still runs deep.
The U.S. military last executed a convicted criminal 50 years ago this month, when an army private was hanged for rape and attempted murder. Seven men now sit on military death row.
Among them is Hasan Akbar, a Muslim convert from Los Angeles who killed fellow U.S. soldiers in Kuwait on the eve of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Convicted of double murder, he has clocked six years on death row, with no execution in sight.
Mohammed's hopes to be executed, ironically, may help save his life. Sending him to his death could reward him with hero status in al-Qaeda, where he would be viewed as a martyr. U.S. juries may be loath to oblige.
