United States: The US government has reached a plea deal with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants, who were charged with accusations of plotting to cause terror attacks in 2001, informed the Defence Department, as CNN reported.
More about the case
The pretrial agreement – made after 27 months of negotiations – removes the death penalty as a possibility for Mohammed, Walid Bin’ Attash, and Mustafa al Hawsawi, according to the prosecutors informed the families of 9/11 victims and survivors in the letter The Department of Defense released to the press Wednesday evening.
In March 2022, after the initiation of negotiations, the three men nodded to plead guilty to all counts, inclusive of the homicide of the 2,976 individuals mentioned in the charging sheet, the families were informed.
What more does the letter inform?
Mohammed and the other accused will plead guilty in a plea call, the details of which may be set for next week at the earliest, based on the letter.
The prosecutors mentioned in the letter, “We recognize that the status of the case in general, and this news in particular, will understandably and appropriately elicit intense emotion, and we also realize that the decision to enter into a pretrial agreement will be met with mixed reactions amongst the thousands of family members who lost loved ones,” as the CNN reported.
“The decision to enter into a pretrial agreement after 12 years of pretrial litigation was not reached lightly; however, it is our collective, reasoned, and good-faith judgment that this resolution is the best path to finality and justice in this case,” as they continued.
Ple is a ‘least bad deal’ – Expert
The plea agreement avoids what would have been a lengthy and cumbersome death penalty trial against Mohammed.
According to Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert and CNN national security analyst who has written extensively about Osama bin Laden, “This is the least bad deal in the real world that would ever happen,” as CNN reports.
The government has been in a difficult situation of pushing the case that almost brought no progress during the last two decades, ever since Mohammed’s detention in Pakistan for his purported function in the terror attacks in 2003.
Bergen added, “They were still in pretrial hearings,” and “Getting some kind of deal is better.”
What were the charges against Mohammed?
In 2008, Mohammed was indicted for conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, inflicting grievous bodily harm, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, and terrorism and provision of material support for terrorism.
This body said that the US had claimed that it would ask for the death penalty for Mohammed.
However, the military trial regarding Mohammed’s case and his alleged accomplices was significantly postponed for years as the US attempted to decide how to approach the problem of torture employed against Mohammed and other detainees at the secret CIA prisons in the 2000s.