Police Wait Two Weeks To Report Murder Of Highly-Decorated Navy Commander Who Played Key Role In Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Confessions

Navy Commander Alphonso Doss

Police in Orange Park, Florida waited two weeks before telling reporters that they were investigating the murder of Navy Commander Alphonso Doss, whose body was found in a hotel room on February 12, 2014. Doss wasn't just any navy commander. He led a team of interrogators at Guantanamo Bay who allegedly obtained confessions from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for masterminding a host of terrorist acts, including 9/11, after he was subjected to torture that included at least 183 water boarding sessions.

Orange Park police told reporters that they didn't reveal Doss' murder until this week "because there was no pressing need to do so." Police Chief Gary Goble only put out a press release on Doss' murder investigation after being contacted by a TV news reporter who had received a tip about Doss' death. According to a heavily redacted police report, Doss' body was found by a woman in the Astoria Hotel near Jacksonville Naval Air Station. The press release and police report did not provide details about the manner of his killing. “Sometimes when you get things in the news, it doesn’t help you,” Goble said. “Sometimes you’ve got to keep it close to the vest.”

The news article appearing in Jacksonville's Florida Times-Union went out of its way to discredit Doss, who had been previously described as a highly-decorated naval officer prior to his promotion as a naval commander two years ago. The news article claimed that Doss had been leading "a troubled life" following the foreclosure of his home, a divorce from his wife and an arrest for driving under the influence. The foreclosure of his home was not by a bank for failing to make mortgage payments but rather a homeowner's association for failing to pay $1,369 in homeowner's association fees and collection costs. The report claimed he was going through a bitter divorce with his wife, although it acknowledged no records of a divorce proceeding were available, and had been living at the hotel where his body was discovered. The DUI arrest occurred nearly two years ago, the same year he was promoted to navy commander. A local Fox News affiliate claims he was being forced into early retirement because of that DUI. That report also claims that he had tried reaching out to a friend in voice mail messages left on her phone for help just days before he was killed.

Doss' hometown newspaper detailed his distinguished service in the Navy when it reported on his promotion to navy commander two years ago. Doss enlisted in the Navy after graduating from high school in Ruleville, Florida. He completed combat missions on two naval ships in the late 1980s and early 1990s and became a commissioned officer in 1996. Doss completed secret counter-drug missions in the Caribbean and South America while stationed aboard the USS Connolly during the late 1990s. In 2006, the Deputy Secretary of Navy assigned Doss to a team of interrogators who questioned suspected enemy-combatants at Guantanamo Bay. It was during that assignment that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed allegedly confessed his role in masterminding the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as well as the first World Trade Center bombing, the Bali nightclub bombings, shoe bomber Richard Reid's foiled attempt to blow up a commercial airplane, the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniels Pearl and the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II and President Bill Clinton, among many other terrorist acts.

According to the Union-Times, Doss began a temporary assignment at the Center for Naval Aviation Technical Training Unit in Jacksonville after working at the Naval Education and Training Command in Pensacola where he’d been stationed since November 2011. Doss’ awards included the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation medal, the Joint Service Achievement medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement medal and the Good Conduct medal.

The so-called confessions of Mohammed have been a source of controversy since they were first announced. He was captured in Pakistan in 2003 by the CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. Mohammed, who was born in Kuwait, joined the Muslim Brotherhood at the age of 16 and came to the United States where he earned a degree in mechanical engineering while attending a college in North Carolina. From there, he went to Pakistan where he began working with the U.S-backed rebel forces seeking to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. He popped up in numerous terrorist hot spots in the ensuing years, from Bosnia to the Philippines.

Mohammed was held at various secret prisons operated by the U.S. following his capture in 2003 where detainees were subject to interrogations that included torture. CIA Director Michael Hayden told Congress in 2008 that Mohammed had been subject to torture during his interrogations, which included being water boarded 183 times. Mohammed later told a representatives of the Red Cross that he provided false information to his interrogators to end the mistreatment. Mohammed's two small children were also subject to abusive interrogation.

The Bush administration had originally planned to try Mohammed for his supposed role in the 9/11 attacks in a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, but the Obama administration decided instead that he would be tried in a federal civilian court in New York. Attorney General later discarded the planned federal civilian trial under political pressure and moved the proceedings back to Guantanamo Bay for a military tribunal trial. The case isn't expected to be tried until 2015, if it ever occurs. If it does occur, it's now for certain that Mohammed's key interrogator won't be called as a witness at his trial. After all, it's going to be a fake trial since anyone with their eyes open has long since figured out that 9/11 was an inside job carried out by rogue forces within our own government, not some make-believe terrorists hiding out in caves in Afghanistan.