Al-Qaida leader says he executed journalist

Transcripts show that suspected September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to the beheading of American journalist Daniel Pearl, according to a revised transcript released by the US military.

“I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan,” Mohammed is quoted as saying in a transcript of a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that was released today by the Defence Department.