A federal appeals court postponed a military court hearing scheduled for Friday, where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, and two co-conspirators are expected to plead guilty as part of a deal negotiated with prosecutors.
The pause, while welcomed by many who opposed plea deals, prolongs a decades-long crusade for justice by victims' families.
Plea deals, of which there will be three 9/11 terrorists Avoiding the death penalty and facing life in prison, it has drawn intense public outrage and sparked a dispute within the Biden administration to undo it.
On New Year's Eve, the Military Court of Appeal overturned the ruling Secretary of Defense Lloyd AustinTrying to block the deal between military prosecutors and defense attorneys, saying Austin doesn't have the ability to revoke plea agreements.
Then on Wednesday Ministry of Justice He appealed this ruling.
Specifically, the court's opinion He said the plea deals That military prosecutors and defense attorneys concluded it was valid and enforceable and that Austin exceeded his authority when he later tried to invalidate it.
The defense now has until January 17 to provide a full response to the Justice Department's request to cancel the plea deals. Government prosecutors will then have until January 22 to respond, with the possibility of oral arguments on the case.
The plea deals, offered to Muhammad and two of his co-conspirators, were intended as a way to end the quest for justice for those who waited more than two decades to convict terrorists who killed their loved ones. It will allow prosecutors to avoid appearing in court.
But why did the government do it? Settle for a plea deal After 23 years of building the case in the first place?
The Biden administration is sending 11 Guantanamo detainees to Amman for resettlement
“I haven't talked to anyone who thinks these plea deals were a good idea. Most people are horrified,” said Brett Eagleson, head of 9/11 Justice.
“We believe this has been canceled in name only and as it happened right before the election. So, Austin was trying to salvage any attempts that would result in a political loss on this,” Eagleson said.
“The defendants are accused of committing the most horrific criminal act on American soil in modern history – the September 11 terrorist attacks,” the government says in its plea this week.
“The military commission judge intends to enforce pretrial plea agreements that will deprive the government and the American people of a public trial as to the guilt of the defendants and the possibility of the death penalty, despite the fact that the Secretary of Defense has lawfully withdrawn these agreements,” the plea said. “It will not be possible to repair the harm to the government and the public once the judge grants the motions, which he is scheduled to do at hearings beginning January 10, 2025.”
The appeal also noted that once the military commission accepted the guilty plea, there was unlikely to be a way back to the status quo.
Defense attorneys for the suspected Sept. 11 perpetrators said Austin's attempts to overturn plea deals negotiated and agreed to by his military were the latest developments in the “intermittent” and “negligent” mishandling of the case that has continued for more than two years. Contracts.
If the plea agreement is upheld, the architects of the attacks that killed 2,976 people, as well as thousands more who died after inhaling toxic dust on rescue missions, would not be executed for their crimes.
“You would think the government would have a chance to get this right, and you would think they would salivate over this opportunity to get justice for us,” Eagleson said. “Instead of doing that, they are shrouding everything in secrecy. They are rushing through these plea deals, and are moving forward despite our objections.
“We want transparency. We want discovery made. In this case, we want to know who are these people they are talking to? On what basis does our government think these people are guilty? Why can't they share this information? It's been 23 years. You can't “You're telling me that you need to protect national security sources and methods because, quite frankly, if we were using the same sources and methods that we were using 23 years ago, we would have bigger fish to fry.”
The government chose to try five men in one case rather than try each of them separately. Muhammad is accused of masterminding the plot and proposing it to Osama bin Laden. Two others allegedly helped the kidnappers financially.
In 2023, a medical committee concluded that Ramzi bin al-Shibh was injured Incompetent to stand trial And remove him from the case. Mohammed, Mustafa Al-Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash are all part of the plea agreement that will allow them to avoid the death penalty. Another person will be put on trial.
“The military commission has really been a failure,” said John Ryan, a retired agent with the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York.
Top Republicans are introducing a bill that would eliminate 9/11 plea deals
Hundreds of people have been convicted on terrorism charges in the United States, and Ramzi Yousef, the perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was convicted in 1997.
But the military commission's September 11 case has faced a revolving door of judges, each of whom takes time to read the 400,000 pages of evidence in the case. Colonel Matthew N. intends to McCall of the Air Force, the fourth judge to preside over hearings in the case, is scheduled to retire in the first quarter of 2025 before any trial begins.
McCall was assigned to the case in August 2021, and held only two rounds of hearings before proceedings were suspended in March 2022 for plea negotiations. Another judge would have to move quickly, and it could take another five to 10 years before a conviction, according to Ryan, who has observed many hearings at Guantanamo.
“You have parents and grandparents (of the victims) who are now in their 80s, you know, and they want to see justice in their lives,” he said.
“So they would rather see the death penalty, but they're kind of accepting the plea agreement here,” he added.
During the 23 years the trial took, important witnesses died, while others' memories of that fateful day faded.
For many years, the trial was delayed as the prosecution and defense argued over whether some of the best evidence presented by the government, obtained under torture by the CIA, It was allowed in court. The defense said their clients were conditioned to say anything that would satisfy investigators under this practice.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder blamed “political hacks” for preventing a trial in the United States, which led to the plea agreement.
Years of procedures in the untested military commission system led to countless delays.
In 2009, Holder wanted to try the men in the Manhattan court system and promised to seek the death penalty, but he faced swift opposition in Congress from lawmakers who opposed bringing suspected terrorists to American soil.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
In 2013, Holder claimed that Muhammad and his co-conspirators would be on “death row as we speak” if the case went through the federal court system as he suggested.
Ten years later, Attorney General William Barr also tried to bring Guantanamo detainees to the United States to stand trial in federal court in 2019. He wrote in his memoirs that the military commission process had become a “hopeless mess.”
“It appears that the military cannot go out of its way and complete the trial,” Barr wrote. He also faced opposition from Republicans in Congress and from then-President Trump.