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Top al Qaeda suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said he beheaded U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl, according to the transcript of a hearing at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp released on Thursday.

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew Daniel Pearl," Mohammed said through a personal representative, according to the transcript of the closed hearing released by the Pentagon.

"For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head."

Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan in 2002. Mohammed has long been considered a prime suspect in the case.

The Pentagon released a first version of the transcript on Wednesday evening but withheld sections on Pearl's killing as it first wanted to make the reporter's family aware of the statement, Department of Defense spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

In another part of the transcript, Mohammed himself - a Pakistani national - speaks about the killing and says it was not an al Qaeda operation.

"It's like beheading Daniel Pearl. It's not related to al Qaida (Qaeda)," the transcript quotes him as saying.

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