A federal appeals court has ruled that as part of a deal with prosecutors, alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-conspirators were expected to plead guilty in a military tribunal scheduled for Friday. The public hearing was postponed.
Although the moratorium has been welcomed by many opponents of the plea deal, it prolongs a decades-long campaign for justice by the victims’ families.
This plea agreement allows the three 9/11 terrorists to avoid the death penalty and impose life sentences, but it provoked intense opposition from the public and even sparked a debate within the Biden administration calling for the plea agreement to be rescinded.
On New Year’s Eve, the Court of Military Appeals rejected Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s efforts to block the agreement between military prosecutors and defense attorneys, saying Austin did not have the authority to rescind the plea deal.
And on Wednesday, the Justice Department appealed that ruling.
Specifically, the court’s opinion stated that the plea agreement entered into by military prosecutors and defense attorneys was valid and enforceable, and that Austin overstepped his authority when he later attempted to invalidate the plea agreement. .
The defense has until January 17 to provide a full response to the Justice Department’s request to set aside the plea agreement. Government prosecutors will then have until Jan. 22 to file a rebuttal, after which oral arguments could be held on the issue.
The plea deal offered to Mr. Mohammed and his two co-conspirators is intended as a way to end the search for justice for those who have waited more than 20 years for the terrorists who killed their loved ones to be convicted. was. That would allow prosecutors to avoid a trial.
But why did the government settle the case with a plea deal in the first place after 23 years of litigation?
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“I haven’t talked to anyone who thinks these plea deals were a good idea. Most people are scared,” said Brett Eagleson, president of 9/11 Justice.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of September 11, shortly after being captured in the 2003 Pakistan attack (AP)
“Our view is that this was canceled in name only, just like it was done right before the election. So we think Austin is trying to block any attempt to inflict any kind of political damage on this. “I was there,” Eagleson said.
“The defendants are charged with committing the most egregious crime in modern history on American soil: the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” the government said in its appeal this week.
“Despite the fact that the Secretary of Defense legally withdrew these agreements, the military commission judges deprived the government and the American people of a public trial regarding the defendants’ guilt and possible death penalty,” the judge said. I’m going to force a deal.” “Once the judge accepts the plea, the harm to the government and the people will be irreparable. The judge plans to do so at a hearing beginning January 10, 2025.”
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Guantanamo Bay
The appeal also pointed out that once the military commission accepts the guilty plea, a return to the status quo would likely be impossible.
Lawyers for the 9/11 perpetrators say Austin’s attempt to renege on a plea deal negotiated and approved by his country’s military is “inappropriate” and “negligent” in a case that has lasted more than two years. He claimed that this was the latest development of clumsiness. Decades.
If the plea deal is upheld, the architects of the attack that killed 2,976 people, and thousands more who died from inhaling toxic dust during rescue operations, will not face the death penalty for their crimes.
“You would think the government would have an opportunity to make it right and would salivate at the opportunity to bring us justice,” Eagleson said. “Instead, they shroud everything in secrecy. They are rushing to complete the plea deal and moving forward despite our objections.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaks at the Henady Udovenko Ukrainian Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine on October 21, 2024 in Kyiv, Ukraine. (Viktor Kovalchuk/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images)
“We want transparency. We want discoveries that are made. We want to know who they are talking about in this case. On what basis will our government Do they think they’re guilty? Why can’t they share the information?” It’s not like we need to protect national security sources and methods. Frankly, if we’re using the same sources and methods as we were 23 years ago, we’ve got bigger things. fish to fry. ”
The government chose to try five men in one case, rather than trying each man individually. Muhammad is accused of masterminding the plan and pitching it to Osama bin Laden. Two others are said to have provided financial support to the hijacker.
In 2023, a medical board concluded that Ramzi bin al-Shib was not competent to stand trial and removed him from the case. Mr. Mohammed, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Atash have all entered into plea deals that allow them to avoid the death penalty. Another person will also stand trial.
“The military commissions were a real failure,” said John Ryan, a former agent with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York.
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Hundreds of people have been convicted of terrorism in the United States, including Ramzi Yousef, the perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, who was convicted in 1997.
But the military commission’s 9/11 case faces a revolving door of judges, each taking time to understand the case’s 400,000 pages and exhibits. The fourth judge to preside over hearings in the case, Air Force Col. Matthew N. McCall, is scheduled to retire in the first quarter of 2025, before the trial begins.
Courtroom sketch of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Walid bin Attash (AP Photo/Janet Hamlin, Pool, File)
McCall took over the case in August 2021 and held only two hearings before adjourning the case in March 2022 for a plea deal. Ryan, who observed many of the hearings at Guantanamo, said another judge would have to review the situation and a conviction could take another five to 10 years.
“You have parents and grandparents. [of victims] “They are now in their 80s and hope they get justice in their lifetime,” he said.
“So they want the death penalty, but here they’re kind of accepting a plea deal.”
In the 23 years leading up to the trial, key witnesses died, and for others, memories of that fateful day are fading.
The trial was delayed for years as prosecutors and defense argued over whether some of the government’s best evidence, obtained under CIA torture, would be allowed in court. The defense argued that under this practice, clients were conditioned to say whatever pleased the interrogators.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder has accused “political hacking” of blocking the U.S. trial and thereby leading to the plea deal.
Years of procedures in an untested military commission system have caused countless delays.
In 2009, Mr. Holder wanted the men tried in a Manhattan courtroom and vowed to seek the death penalty, but he faced swift opposition in Congress, which opposed bringing terrorist suspects onto U.S. soil.
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In 2013, Mr. Holder said that if the case had been tried in federal court as he proposed, Mr. Muhammad and his co-conspirators would be sitting on “death row as we speak.” insisted.
Ten years later, in 2019, Attorney General William Barr also tried to bring Guantanamo detainees to the United States for trial in federal court. In his memoirs, he wrote that the military commission proceedings became a “hopeless mess.”
“The military appears unable to get out of its own way and complete the trial,” Barr wrote. He also faced opposition from Republicans in Congress and then-President Trump.
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