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By Aila Slisco
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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused as the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and two of his accomplices have reached a plea agreement with the U.S. government to avoid the death penalty.
Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi entered into pretrial agreements with Susan Escallier, the convening authority for military commissions, according to a news release from the Department of Defense (DoD) on Wednesday.
The DoD release noted that "the specific terms and conditions of the pretrial agreements are not available to the public at this time."
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However, The New York Times reported that the agreements would allow the defendants to avoid a death penalty trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they have resided for around two decades, in favor of life sentences.
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"In exchange for the removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet," a letter on the agreement signed by Rear Admiral Aaron C. Rugh reportedly says.
Newsweek reached out for comment to the DoD via email on Wednesday evening.
Mohammed is accused of originating the idea of hijacking commercial airliners and flying them into buildings, informing Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden of his plan in 1996. Bin Attash and al-Hawsawi are also accused helping planning the attack.
Bin Laden directed Al-Qaeda hijackers to execute the plan five years later, killing nearly 3,000 people after flying hijacked planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
The defendants, who have been held by the U.S. since 2003, are expected to formally plead guilty as soon as next week, with several family members of those killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks having requested formal admissions of guilt, according to the Associated Press.
The plea agreements come more than 16 years after Mohammed and four of his accomplices were charged in the attacks and a dozen years since they were arraigned in 2012, with the proceedings having never moved past the pretrial stage.
Two other co-defendants, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Ammar al-Baluchi, were not parties to the plea agreement. Discussions on crafting a deal reportedly began around March 2022.
Mohammed and his accomplices have avoided a trial for an extended period due in part to questions about the U.S. government's treatment of 9/11 defendants at an assortment of "black sites" around the world, which legal experts have suggested impeded efforts to prosecute them.
In a statement emailed to Newsweek, Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA, called the plea agreements "welcome news" that would bring "some accountability for the 9/11 attacks, and justice for the victims and survivors of those horrific crimes."
"We are also pleased that there is finally an outcome for at least some of the accused, who were tortured and then languished in detention without trial for more than two decades," Eviatar said. "This should be the beginning of the end of the Guantanamo Bay detention center."
"We urge the Biden administration to release the remaining detainees who have not been charged with crimes, and close the facility once and for all," she added. "[And] take all necessary measures to ensure that a program of state-sanctioned enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment will never be perpetrated by the United States again."
Al-Qaeda leadership has been decimated in the decades since 9/11, although the group is believed to still be active in a diminished state.
Former President Barack Obama announced bin Laden's death during a U.S. raid in Pakistan in May 2011. Bin Laden's second-in-command and successor, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed in Afghanistan in a U.S. drone strike authorized by President Joe Biden in July 2022.
Shortly after news of the plea deal emerged, Republican politicians responded on social media by suggesting that Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, this year's likely Democratic nominee for president, had insulted the families of 9/11 victims.
"The Biden-Harris Administration has done the unthinkable: they've agreed to a plea deal with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11th attacks, and two of his accomplices," Speaker of the House Mike Johnson wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"For more than two decades, the families of those murdered by these terrorists have waited for justice," he continued. "This plea deal is a slap in the face of those families. They deserved better from the Biden-Harris Administration."
"Plea deal? Are you kidding me?" Congressman Chip Roy wrote.
"Unless the plea deal is execution, this is a colossal, staggering betrayal," wrote Stephen Miller, former adviser to ex-President Donald Trump.
Update 7/31/24, 9:40 p.m. ET: This article has been updated to include reactions from Republican politicians.
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