Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News, 2014-01-15

“The Qur'an forbids the use of violence to spread Islam.” That’s what the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has released in a manifesto.

The document declassified last month by military judge James Pohl and published by The Huffington Post and Britain's Channel 4 News, marks Mohammed's first public communication since 2009, when the United States government officially accused him of terrorism.

Mohammed, the most high-profile and notorious of the five men accused over the 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people on U.S. soil, has been held at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba since 2006.

In a rebuttal from his previous position, Mohammed said that “the Holy Qur'an forbids us to use force as a means of converting!”

In the 36 page document, he also tried to convince his American captors, prosecutors, lawyers and members of his military tribunal to revert to Islam.

“It is my religious duty in dealing with any non-Muslims such as the people in the court (the judge, the prosecution, attorneys, etc.) to invite them to embrace Islam,” Mohammed wrote.

“I realize very well that you have heard about Islam and know much about it. But it is my own belief that Allah will ask me on the Day of Judgment why I did not invite these people to Islam?”

Mohammed said he was “very happy” in his cell, adding: “My spirit is free even while my body is being held captive.”

Mohammed said he has been “neither sad nor distressed” in his confinement “because I have been with the Only One True God.”

Defense lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The message of propaganda spreads furiously and sceptics are rife on whether the manifesto and the message it contains emanated from mastermind Sheikh Mohammed.

(Twitter: @Faizie143)