New Delhi: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the World Trade Centre terrorist attack on 11 September, 2001, has agreed to plead guilty along with two other accomplices, the US Department of Defence announced Wednesday.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, along with the accomplices Walid Mohammad Salih Mubarak bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, has entered into “pre-trial” agreements, a statement by the US Department of Defence said.
However, a letter by the department to the families of the victims of the 11 September attacks reveals details of the agreement — the three accused will plead guilty to all of the charges, including the murder of 2,976 people from the World Trade Centre attacks in exchange for the removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment.
“These negotiations have been on-going for the past 27 months, and this letter is sent to inform you that the negotiations have reached resolution with three of the Accused agreeing to plead guilty in this case,” said the letter by the department of defence to the victims’ families as published by The New York Times.
Mohammed, bin Attash and al Hawsawi have also agreed to answer any questions posed by the families of the victims “regarding their roles and reasons” in conducting the 9/11 attacks.
The three individuals are expected to enter their pleas as early as 5 August or at latest by September or October 2024. The Defence lawyers have requested for a life sentence in exchange for the guilty pleas, according to reports.
The agreement comes 18 years after Mohammed was first transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a US military prison established in 2002 for illegal enemy combatants — who engage in conflict in violation of the laws of war.
Mohammed, who was detained in 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, was transferred through detention sites set up by the Central Intelligence Agency across the region, until finally being detained at Guantanamo Bay in 2006. He was reportedly tortured, including being waterboarded 183 times and deprived of sleep for almost eight days.
The plea deal prevented a trial, which was expected to run for 12 to 18 months, which could have seen the military judge throw out any confessions made under torture, according to news reports.
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The agreement comes about 16 years after the prosecution against them began for al-Qaeda’s terrorist attack in 2001. The attacks saw al-Qaeda trained terrorists hijack four passenger aircraft, flying three of them into the World Trade Centre in New York City and the Pentagon in Virginia. In the fourth aircraft — which was headed for Washington D.C. — crew members and passengers tried to overpower the terrorists and the plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.
Mohammed is accused by the US authorities of coming up with the plan of hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings and submitting the proposal to Osama bin Laden, the then chief of al-Qaeda, in 1996. He is also accused of helping train some of the hijackers.
The attack triggered the US’ War on Terror. Under then President George W. Bush, America invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, which began Washington D.C.’s almost two decades of continuous interventions in the region. The US battled extremist groups and insurgents across the region.
The wars in West Asia cost nearly 7,100 American soldiers’ lives, while the civilian death toll is said to be around 4,00,000.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhari)
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