Washington: US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday (local time) abruptly revoked plea deals with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, along with two of his accomplices. This came days after it was announced that retired, Brigadier General Susan Escallier, who oversaw Pentagon's Guantanamo war court, approved plea deals with the trio.
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 who are currently held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. However, it did not disclose the terms and conditions of the pretrial agreements.
US officials said 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. Letters sent to families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the al-Qaeda attacks said the agreements stipulated that the three would serve life sentences at best.
Some families of the attack's victims condemned the deal for cutting off any possibility of full trials and possible death penalties. Republicans were quick to fault the Biden administration for the deal, although the White House said after it was announced it had no knowledge of it. he only thing worse than negotiating with terrorists is negotiating with them after they are in custody," said US Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, accusing the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden of "cowardice in the face of terror."
Lloyd Austin nullifies Escallier's approval
Days before the July 31 agreements, Austin on Friday nullified Escallier's approval of pre-trial agreements in the case and took on the responsibility himself. "I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the above-referenced case, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009," he said in a memo to Escallier.
"Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024, in the above-referenced case," he wrote. The US military commission overseeing the cases of five defendants in the 9/11 attacks has been stuck in pre-trial hearings and other preliminary court action since 2008.
"Today, Secretary Austin signed a memo reserving for himself the specific authority to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the 9/11 military commission cases. In addition, as the superior convening authority, the Secretary has also withdrawn from the pre-trial agreements that were signed in those cases," said the Pentagon.
Meanwhile, J Wells Dixon, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights who has represented defendants at Guantanamo as well as other detainees, accused Austin on Friday of “bowing to political pressure and pushing some victim family members over an emotional cliff" by rescinding the plea deals.
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)
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