Pleas of guilt for 9/11 were delayed after government opposition

The US government has succeeded in temporarily preventing the accused mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks from pleading guilty amid a dispute over the terms of a pretrial agreement.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two of his co-defendants reached agreements last summer to plead guilty to all charges in exchange for not facing the death penalty.

In a suit before a federal appeals court, the government said it would be irreparably harmed if the petitions were granted.

A three-judge panel said they needed more time to consider the case and suspend the proceedings. They stressed that the delay “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits” of the case.

This comes after a military judge and the appeals committee rejected an earlier move taken by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Cancellation of agreementswhich was signed by a senior official appointed by him.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed in the attacks of September 11, 2001, when hijackers seized airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington. Another plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers responded.

The three men have been in US custody for more than 20 years, and pre-trial hearings in this case have continued for more than a decade.

The arguments focused on whether the evidence was tainted by the torture the defendants endured while in CIA custody after their arrest.

Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding, or “waterboarding,” 183 times while held in secret CIA prisons after his arrest in 2003. Among the so-called “advanced interrogation techniques” were sleep deprivation and forced nudity.

Families of some of those killed in the September 11 attacks criticized the deals for being too lenient or lacking in transparency, while others saw them as a way to move the complex and long-standing issue forward.

Those who traveled to the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to watch Mohammed plead guilty were speaking to reporters when news of the postponement was announced.

“The United States government has failed the families of 9/11 once again,” said Tom Resta, whose brother, sister-in-law and their unborn child were killed in the attacks. “They had the opportunity to do the right thing and they decided not to do it.”

The government said that going ahead with the deals would mean denying it the opportunity to “seek the death penalty against three men accused of committing a heinous act of mass murder that killed thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world.”

“A short delay to allow this court to examine the merits of the government's request in this very important case will not materially harm the defendants,” she said.

In their response, Mohammed's team said the agreement provides “the first opportunity for real closure” in nearly a quarter of a century. She said the plea negotiations, which took place over two years, “involved the White House directly.”

The Federal Court of Appeal said in its decision Thursday evening that its decision was intended to give the justices sufficient time to receive a full briefing and hear arguments “expeditiously.”

The delay means that the matter will now fall to the incoming Trump administration.

The full details of the deals reached with Muhammad and two of his co-defendants were not revealed.

At a court hearing at Guantanamo on Wednesday, his legal team confirmed that he had agreed to plead guilty to all charges against him.

If the deals are upheld and the court accepts the appeals, the next steps will be to appoint a military jury, known as a panel, to hear the evidence at a sentencing hearing.

In court on Wednesday, lawyers described this as a form of public trial, where survivors and family members of those killed are given the opportunity to make statements.

Under the agreement, the families will also be able to ask Mohamed questions, who will be required to “answer their questions fully and truthfully,” the lawyers say.