New Delhi: US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin Friday withdrew from a pre-trial deal struck with the lawyers of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his two accomplices, which removed the option of the death penalty as a sentence.
Khalid Sheikh and the others are currently held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in the US under terrorism-related charges.
“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on 31 July, 2024, in the above-referenced case,” said Austin in a memorandum to retired Brigadier General Susan Escallier, the overseer of military commissions at Guantánamo Bay.
“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. Effective immediately, I hereby withdraw your authority in the above-referenced case to enter into a pre-trial agreement and reserve such authority to myself,” the defence secretary added.
The US defence department announced Wednesday that Khalid Sheikh and two accomplices, Walid Mohammed Salih Mubarak bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, had entered into a pre-trial agreement, in which they were willing to plead guilty to all charges, including the murder of 2,976 people in the World Trade Centre attacks, in exchange for the removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment.
The agreement, which took 27 months to negotiate, would have seen the three individuals enter their plea as early as 5 August or latest by September or October 2024, allowing for a potential earlier conclusion to the case than if it had gone on to trial.
The deal, however, created a furore among the victims’ families and leaders across the US, according to media reports.
A bill was introduced Friday in the US Senate by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) to “nullify” any plea deal made with the three individuals and to ensure that the death penalty remains an option in sentencing.
“Giving a plea deal to the terrorist masterminds behind 9/11 is disgraceful and an insult to the victims of the attacks, as well as those who served to avenge them. These monsters should have faced justice decades ago; instead, (US President) Joe Biden and (Vice-President) Kamala Harris are setting the stage to let them go free. My bill will stop this travesty,” said Cotton in a statement Friday.
Senate minority Leader Mitch McConnell called the pre-trial agreement a “national disgrace” and a “revolting abdication” of the government’s “responsibility” to see justice done in the case, in a statement on X Thursday.
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Case history
The case has faced numerous issues since it first began 16 years ago, including relating to whether any evidence recorded from the detainees under torture in secret prisons by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) would be admissible in court, according to The New York Times.
Khalid Sheikh, who was first arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 2003 was transferred through secret detention camps set up by the CIA across the region and in Europe, before finally being detained at Guantánamo Bay in 2006. He was reportedly tortured, including being waterboarded 183 times and deprived of sleep for almost eight days.
Khalid Sheikh 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 the al-Qaeda, in 1996. He is also accused of helping train some of the hijackers.
On 11 September, 2001, al-Qaeda-trained terrorists hijacked four passenger aircraft and flew two of them into the World Trade Centre in New York, while a third was flown into the Pentagon. A fourth plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, after some passengers tried to overpower the hijackers. Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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