UPDATE
Aug 3, 2024 7:00 AM CDT
The death penalty may be back on the table for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accused accomplices after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday revoked their deals to plead guilty made earlier this week, following backlash from some families of 9/11 victims, GOP lawmakers, and the New York City firefighters union, per the Washington Post. Austin also removed retired Brig. Gen. Susan K. Escallier from overseeing the case and put himself in charge. "I have determined that ... responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009," Austin wrote in a memo. J. Wells Dixon, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, who has repped defendants at Guantanamo Bay, accused Austin on Friday of "bowing to political pressure" in revoking the plea deals, per the AP.
Jul 31, 2024 7:25 PM CDT
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused as the main plotter in al-Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US, has agreed to plead guilty, the Defense Department said Wednesday, pointing to a long-delayed resolution in an attack that altered the course of the US and much of the Middle East. He and two accomplices, Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, are expected to enter the pleas at the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as soon as next week, the AP reports. Pentagon officials declined to immediately release the terms of the plea bargain. The New York Times, citing unidentified Pentagon officials, said the terms included the men's longstanding condition that they be spared risk of the death penalty.
The US agreement with the men to enter into a plea agreement comes more than 16 years after their prosecution began for al-Qaeda's attack. It comes more than 20 years after militants flew commandeered commercial airliners into buildings. The attack killed nearly 3,000 people and triggered years of US wars against militant extremist groups that reshaped Middle East countries and, in many ways, American society. Terry Strada, national chairperson of a group of families of victims called 9/11 Families United, had been at Manhattan federal court for a hearing on one of many civil lawsuits when she heard news of the plea agreement.
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Strada said many families have just wanted to see the men admit guilt. "For me personally, I wanted to see a trial," she said, per the AP. "And they just took away the justice I was expecting, a trial and the punishment." She added: "They were cowards when they planned the attack. And they're cowards today." Dozens of relatives of those killed died while awaiting resolution of the case, Strada said. (More Khalid Sheikh Mohammed stories.)
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