9/11 conspirators agree to plead guilty 20 years after attack on US Twin Towers
September 11, 2001 Attack (Photo: FBI|Twitter)
More than two decades after the September 11, 2001, attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two of his alleged accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, have agreed to plea deals to conspiracy and murder. The plea deal, announced Wednesday, is intended to avoid a death penalty trial in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and instead offers the defendants life sentences.
The decision marks a pivotal moment in a case long mired in legal complexity and delays. Prosecutors have stressed that the settlement aims to provide “finality and justice” to the nearly 3,000 victims who died in the attacks on New York City, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, according to media reports.
The settlement, reached after 27 months of negotiations, was approved by a senior Pentagon official who oversaw the military commissions. The three men have been in U.S. custody since 2003, but their case has been dogged by pretrial proceedings for more than a decade. At the heart of those proceedings has been the question of whether evidence obtained under torture in secret CIA prisons had tainted the case.
A letter from prosecutors at the war court to the victims’ families contained a detailed agreement requiring the defendants to plead guilty to all charges, including the murder of the 2,976 people named in the indictment. The letter, signed by Rear Admiral Aaron C. Rugh, the chief prosecutor for military commissions, and his team, said the pleas could be entered in open court as early as next week.
The plea deal avoids what was expected to be a lengthy 12- to 18-month trial or the risk that a military judge would throw out key confessions. The case has been ongoing since 2012, with recent hearings focused on the admissibility of evidence and confessions.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, 59, a U.S.-trained engineer and militant, is accused of masterminding the hijacking plan and presenting it to Osama bin Laden in 1996. He and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, 55, were captured in Pakistan in March 2003 and subjected to harsh interrogations in CIA prisons before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times.
Walid bin Attash, in his mid-40s, is believed to have been a key figure in training the hijackers and carrying out missions assigned by Mohammed and bin Laden. The remaining two original suspects, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Ammar al-Baluchi, were not part of the plea agreement. Bin al-Shibh was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial, while al-Baluchi, 46, may be tried separately.
The plea deal was reached after significant hurdles, including a failed negotiation over the defendants’ conditions of imprisonment. They had sought guarantees against solitary confinement and enhanced family contact, which the Biden administration ultimately did not grant.
The settlement has drawn mixed reactions from the victims’ families. Some are relieved that the case will be resolved, while others are disappointed that a death penalty trial will not take place. The process, known as restorative justice, allows families to ask questions of the defendants and receive answers before the end of 2024.
Admiral Rugh and his team acknowledged the difficulty of their decision and stated that after twelve years of pre-trial litigation, the resolution is the best path to justice and closure.
First print: Aug 01, 2024 | 1:37 PM IST