Joe Biden’s Defense Department approved a plea deal Wednesday for three of the conspirators behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi will enter pleas before the military commission at Guantanamo Bay next week.
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Plea Agreements Reached with 9/11 Defendants Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa al Hawsawi
The Convening Authority for Military Commissions, Susan Escallier, has entered into pretrial agreements with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, three of the co-accused in the 9/11 case. The specific terms and conditions of the pretrial agreements are not available to the public at this time.
The three accused, along with Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Ramzi Bin al Shibh, were initially charged jointly and arraigned on June 5, 2008, and then were again charged jointly and arraigned a second time on May 5, 2012, in connection with their alleged roles in the September 11, 2001, attacks against the United States.
Information regarding military commissions can be found at the Office of Military Commissions website: https://www.mc.mil.
The terms of the deal were allegedly not announced because they haven’t been finalized, however, after what we’ve seen of this bunch for the last four years, believing that takes a tremendous leap of faith.
The Pentagon announcement Wednesday didn’t include details, but a person familiar with the deal said that it involved a life sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. Prosecutors had been seeking the death penalty, but the torture of the defendants while in Central Intelligence Agency custody had clouded proceedings for years.
A plea bargain frees the government from having to defend its treatment of the defendants after their capture and the risk that a military judge or appellate court would punish U.S. government misconduct by taking the death penalty off the table. The defendants, who in earlier proceedings attempted to plead guilty, would in turn be spared the executioner’s needle and instead serve life in prison.
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The last two prisoners at Guantanamo were not part of this deal.
Two other men also were charged in the Sept. 11 plot but weren’t part of the plea agreement. One, Ramzi Binalshibh, was found last year by a military judge to be mentally incompetent to stand trial, due in part to his treatment in CIA custody.
Another defendant, Ammar al-Baluchi, has been unwilling to reach a deal without obtaining guarantees for medical treatment and other conditions of his future confinement, people familiar with the matter said.
The news wasn’t well received on Capitol Hill.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) condemned the plea bargain, saying the defendants should have faced the death penalty. The deal “is a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice,” he said.
And Biden eagerly distanced himself from the decision.
President Biden learned of the plea bargain Wednesday, a National Security Council spokesman said.
“The president and the White House played no role in this process. The president has directed his team to consult as appropriate with officials and lawyers at the Department of Defense on this matter,” the spokesman said.
The only reason we are going through this is because of a direct usurpation of congressional power by a crazed Anthony Kennedy and four fellow travelers. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 specifically placed review of the act outside the purview of the Supreme Court as allowed by Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 of the US Constitution: “with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” The actions of the Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush should have resulted in Bush telling Kennedy to take a long walk on a short pier, and impeachment proceedings should have been brought against every federal judge who agreed to touch the case. But, alas, that would have required courage.
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So, the final curtain is coming down on 9/11 and the Global War on Terror. Thanks to the Defense Department’s total lack of transparency, it looks like that curtain will go down with as much controversy as when it came up.