Alleged 9/11 mastermind says he’ll help victims’ lawsuit if U.S. spares him death penalty

Alleged September 11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has opened the door to helping victims of the terrorist attacks in their lawsuit against Saudi Arabia, if the U.S. government spares him the death penalty at a Guantanamo Bay military commission, according to Al Jazeera.

Mohammed’s offer was disclosed in a Friday filing in the victims’ federal lawsuit in New York, which accuses the Saudi government of helping coordinate the 2001 suicide attacks.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed when terrorists crashed hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and, after passengers resisted, a Pennsylvania field. Riyadh has denied complicity in the attacks.

Separately, President Trump on Monday signed legislation that pays for medical claims from victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, including first responders, for the rest of their lives.

Read also: China vows to punish violent, unlawful protesters in Hong Kong

The 55-year-old KSM has been held for nearly 13 years at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo, Cuba, where he and four other accused terrorists are charged with war crimes related to the 9/11 attacks using three hijacked airplanes on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon, along with the fourth hijacking of a commercial airliner that crashed near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after first being flown toward Washington, D.C.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals.

In addition to the 9/11 attacks, the al-Qaeda member has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.

Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and has been held in the US’s Guantanamo Bay prison since 2006.

The CIA subjected him to waterboarding 183 times in 2003, which former US President George W Bush later said he personally authorised.

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