US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday rejected plea deals reached earlier this week with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two of his associates, apparently in exchange for avoiding punishment. with death.
All three accused are being held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
The Pentagon said Wednesday that plea deals had been reached, but did not elaborate on the terms. A US official said the deals almost certainly include a guilty plea in exchange for avoiding the death penalty.
But on Friday Secretary Austin issued an order stating that “given the importance” of this case, he had decided that the authority to make a decision on plea agreements should rest with him. He overturned the official's decision. who had been appointed to oversee the Guantanamo court-martial Susan Escallier over the deals.
Some families of the victims of the attacks strongly criticized the deals, saying they preclude the possibility of full trials and death sentences.
Republicans immediately blamed the administration of President Joe Biden, although the White House said it had no prior knowledge of the decision.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is the best-known detainee at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, which was established in 2002 by then-President George W. Bush to hold suspected foreign militants after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on United States.
The highest number of detainees in that complex was 800. Today there are 30 prisoners in Guantanamo.
The plea agreement between the United States government and the 9/11 defendants comes more than 16 years after they were prosecuted in connection with the al-Qaida attacks and more than 20 years after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 persons and after which the US started the war in Afghanistan that continued for two decades.
Plea agreements were also reached with two other prisoners: Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.
