Washington: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed to be the mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has agreed to plead guilty along with two of his accomplices, according to the US Defence Department. The trio are currently held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay for their role in the 9/11 attacks.
In an official statement, the Pentagon said the US had reached plea agreements with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, three of the co-accused in the 9/11 attacks. However, it did not disclose the terms and conditions of the pretrial agreements.
"The three accused, along with Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Ramzi Bin al Shibh, were initially charged jointly and arraigned on June 5, 2008, and then were again charged jointly and arraigned a second time on May 5, 2012, in connection with their alleged roles in the September 11, 2001, attacks against the United States," read the release.
What do the plea deals entail?
A US official told Reuters that the plea deals almost certainly involved guilty pleas in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table. The official said the terms of the agreement had not been publicly disclosed but acknowledged a plea for a life sentence was possible.
The agreements come almost 23 years after Al-Qaeda's terrorists flew hijacked commercial airlines into buildings, including the World Trade Centre in New York. The attack killed nearly 3,000 people and triggered years of US wars against militant extremist groups in Afghanistan and other countries.
Who is Khalid Shaikh Mohammad?
Mohammed is the most well-known inmate at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, which was set up in 2002 by then-US President George W Bush to house foreign militant suspects following the 9/11 attacks. He is accused of masterminding the plot to fly hijacked commercial passenger aircraft into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
A member of the Osama Bin Laden-led Al-Qaeda, Mohammed had led propaganda operations for the terrorist group and was captured in Pakistan's Rawalpindi city in 2003. His interrogations have long been the subject of scrutiny. A 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA's use of waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation techniques" said that Mohammed had been waterboarded at least 183 times.
Meanwhile, US Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell condemned the plea deals. "The only thing worse than negotiating with terrorists is negotiating with them after they are in custody," McConnell said in a statement, accusing the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden of "cowardice in the face of terror."
(with inputs from agency)
