US reaches plea deal with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

 

The US has reached a plea deal with alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants accused of plotting the 2001 terror attacks, according to the Defense Department.

The pretrial agreement – reached after 27 months of negotiations – takes the death penalty off the table for Mohammed, Walid Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa al Hawsawi, prosecutors said in a letter, obtained by CNN, sent to the families of 9/11 victims and survivors shortly before the Department of Defense announced the news in a press release Wednesday evening.

After beginning negotiations in March 2022, the three men agreed to plead guilty to all charges, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charging sheet, the families were told.

Mohammed and his co-defendants will enter guilty pleas at a plea hearing that could come as early as next week, according to 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 pre-trial agreement will be met with mixed reactions amongst the thousands of family members who lost loved ones,” prosecutors wrote in the letter. “The decision to enter into a pre-trial agreement after 12 years of pre-trial 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.”

‘The least bad deal’

The plea agreement avoids what would have been a long and complicated death penalty trial against Mohammed.

“This is the least bad deal in the real world that would ever happen,” said Peter Bergen, a terrorism expert and CNN national security analyst who has written extensively about Osama bin Laden.

The government faced the difficult challenge of advancing a case that had stalled over the course of the two decades since Mohammed’s capture in Pakistan in 2003 for his alleged involvement in the terror attacks.

“They were still in pre-trial hearings,” Bergen told CNN. “Getting some kind of deal is better.”

In 2008, Mohammed was charged with a list of crimes including conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, and terrorism and material support of terrorism. The US had said it would seek the death penalty for Mohammed.

But the military trial against Mohammed and his alleged co-conspirators was delayed for years as the US tried to determine how to handle the issue of torture used against Mohammed and others at secret CIA prisons in the 2000s. The issue posed a legal problem for prosecutors about whether evidence obtained through torture was admissible in court.

The trial was set to begin on January 11, 2021, but delays brought about by the resignation of two judges and the coronavirus pandemic pushed the date back again.

The three alleged conspirators will still face a sentencing hearing where the parties will present evidence to argue for an appropriate sentence short of the death penalty. That sentencing hearing will not occur before next summer, according to the letter sent to families.

“During the sentencing hearings in this case, there may be an opportunity for a member of your family to testify about the impact the September 11 attacks have had on you and your loved ones, and to provide a victim impact statement that will be considered by the military jury in determining a sentence,” prosecutors said in the letter.

The letter notes that prosecutors met with families for feedback about possible plea agreements as is required by law.

As part of the agreement, the defendants agreed to answer written questions from the surviving victims and victims’ families about their roles and reasons for conducting the attacks.

The families now have 45 days to submit questions to be answered by the alleged co-conspirators by the end of the year, the letter says. According to the letter, the prosecutors plan to travel to meet with the families in person this fall to discuss the plea agreements.

It’s unclear where Mohammed and his co-defendants will serve out their sentences.

The Biden administration has made it a priority to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba where the defendants have been held, repatriating several detainees who were no longer considered significant threats to national security. But dozens of detainees still remain in the facility.