Planner of Sept 11 attacks waterboarded 183 times: NYT

WASHINGTON: CIA interrogators used the waterboarding technique on Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the admitted planner of the Sept 11 attacks, 183 times and 83 times on another Al-Qaida suspect, The New York Times said on Sunday.

The Times said a 2005 Justice Department memorandum showed that Abu Zubaydah, the first prisoner questioned in the CIA's overseas detention program in August 2002, was waterboarded 83 times, although a former CIA officer had told news media he had been subjected to only 35 seconds underwater before talking.

President Barack Obama has banned the use of waterboarding, overturning a Bush administration policy that it did not constitute torture.