Was This Pic of 9/11 Suspect Smuggled Out of Gitmo?

Officials scrambling to find out how photos landed on jihadist website
By Mary Papenfuss,  Newser Staff
Posted May 25, 2012 1:52 AM CDT
Updated May 25, 2012 2:12 AM CDT
Was This Pic of 9/11 Suspect Smuggled Out of Gitmo?
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a 2003 photo: a very different look.   (AP Photo/File)

US officials are at a loss to explain how apparently recent photos of the suspected 9/11 master plotter ended up on a jihadist website. They fear the photos may have been taken and smuggled out of Guantanamo Bay. The photos show a calm, often smiling Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other detainees, reports NBC News. In one, a beatific-looking Mohammed appears to be reading the Koran. The shots seem to have been taken in the high-security Gitmo detention facility in Cuba where Mohammed is currently facing a military tribunal with four others on 9/11 murder and terrorism charges.

Investigators are attempting to determine if the photos were actually taken at the site, or were Photoshopped using old pictures of Mohammed. Photos are not allowed to be taken at the site or distributed without authorization. The photos were published by Al-Ebdaa Media under the headline: "New Pictures from The Champions of Islam in Guantanamo," notes USA Today. (More 9/11 attacks stories.)

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