Plea deal for 9/11 terrorists that’ll spare them from death penalty back on as judge blocks Pentagon’s effort to toss it
THE plea deal that spares the mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks and his accomplices from the death penalty is back on the table after a failed attempt by the Pentagon to dismiss it.
The accused terrorists could potentially serve a life sentence in the US Naval base of Guantánamo Bay as part of the agreement, despite committing the heinous attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the alleged architect of the attacks against the , Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi struck a deal with prosecutors on July 31 and agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence.
The deal would allow the trio to be spared from the death penalty and remain jailed on the southern portion of the American Naval base in .
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin attempted to halt the agreement by filing a motion to a military appeals court on August 3, just days after it was announced.
In his brief, Austin cited the magnitude of the 9/11 attacks and argued that as defense secretary, he should decide on any plea agreements that would save the three men from the death penalty.
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But the defense attorneys for the suspected terrorists argued that Austin had no legal authority to reject a decision that was already approved by the Guantánamo Bay court's top command.
Air Force Colonel Matthew McCall, the military judge overseeing the 9/11 case in the Guantánamo Bay court, sided with the defense and ruled Austin "lacked standing to throw out the plea bargains after they were underway."
McCall's opinion led Austin to file an appeal with a military appeals court, which rejected the defense secretary's motion on Monday.
Austin can take his effort to the US Court of Appeals in , where he can file another motion to dismiss the deals.
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Prosecutors who presented the deal during the summer said it would bring some "finality and justice to the case," which has been lingering in the judicial process since the three men were arrested by US officials in 2003.
WORST NIGHTMARE
The agreement has sparked an outrage from family members of victims who died during the 9/11 attacks.
Rachel Uchitel broke down in tears in a sit-down interview with The U.S. Sun, recalling the harrowing days and months after tragedy struck.
Uchitel lost her fiance, Andy O'Grady, after al-Qaeda militants flew two commercial planes into the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City.
A then 26-year-old Uchitel who O'Grady, 32, had just proposed to weeks before, was plunged into a harrowing nightmare that began to unfold while she was at her job at Bloomberg TV.
"I was doing what I normally did on the assignment desk, and somebody said, the World Trade Center's on fire," Uchitel cried as she recalled the harrowing day to The U.S. Sun on the 23rd anniversary of the attacks.
Uchitel said that despite the horrifying events unfolding before her eyes, she still couldn't fathom that things would end as they did.
"No one expected that these towers would fall," she said.
Uchitel said she knew that from where the second plane hit, it was much further down from where her fiance was, and she found some comfort in that.
I knew mathematically in my head, I mean, I did the numbers and the minutes. There was no way he could get down the stairs that fast. I'm sure he was still above the hit when it happened.
Rachel Uchitel
"I think in my head, I was worried, but I thought, oh, he'll just go to the roof. I didn't think that this could be a scenario where he would not be coming home that night, you know?"
"And minutes later, 45 minutes later, his building that was the second to get hit was the first to fall, and you see it sort of veer to the side and then crumble in itself."
"No one can survive something that huge.
"I knew mathematically in my head, I mean, I did the numbers and the minutes. There was no way he could get down the stairs that fast. I'm sure he was still above the hit when it happened."
Uchitel joined the crowds as she searched nearby hospitals, hoping that through a miracle, O'Grady had turned up somewhere.
She recalled that she looked for O'Grady's name at the Manhattan Armory and that she also checked at Bellevue Hospital, which is where the heartbreaking image of her sobbing was taken.
It took Uchitel nearly a week to wrap her head around her nightmare becoming a reality.
Four months after the Twin Towers collapsed, she had confirmation of how her fiance had died.
"It was very important to hear how they found him, and he had died of blunt force trauma to the head," Uchitel told The U.S. Sun.
Key figures behind 9/11
Here are some of the key figures involved in the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.
Hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11
- Mohamed Atta
- Abdulaziz al-Omari
- Wail al-Shehri
- Waleed al-Shehri
- Satam al-Suqami
Hijackers on United Airlines Flight 175
- Marwan al-Shehhi
- Fayez Banihammad
- Mohand al-Shehri
- Hamza al-Ghamdi
- Ahmed al-Ghamdi
Hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77
- Hani Hanjour
- Khalid al-Mihdhar
- Majed Moqed
- Nawaf al-Hazmi
- Salem al-Hazmi
Hijackers on United Airlines Flight 93
- Ziad Jarrah
- Ahmed al-Haznawi
- Ahmed al-Nami
- Saeed al-Ghamdi
Three suspects have also accepted a plea deal in the two decades since the attacks - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.
The men, along with Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Ramzi Bin al Shibh, were jointly arraigned on June 5, 2008, and again on May 5, 2012.
Al-Hawsawi was charged with helping the hijackers with their finances and travel arrangements.
'NATIONAL DISGRACE'
Congressional lawmakers have also slammed the plea deal, calling it a "national disgrace" and a "total miscarriage of justice."
"The Biden-Harris Administration’s weakness in the face of sworn enemies of the American people apparently knows no bounds," said Senate Minority Leader at the time.
"The plea deal with terrorists – including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks that killed thousands of Americans – is a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice.
"The only thing worse than negotiating with terrorists is negotiating with them after they are in custody."
McConnell said families would not get the "real justice" they have been seeking for nearly 23 years.
"The families of their victims and the American people deserve real justice," he added.
"In the same week that Israel eliminated some of Iran’s most trusted terrorist proxies, the Administration’s decision to spare these mass-murderers from the death penalty is an especially bitter pill."
Vice President-elect at the time also slammed the - administration over the deal.
"We need a president who kills terrorists, not negotiates with them," he told supporters in Glendale, , while on the campaign trail on July 31.
"Just today, I heard that the Biden-Harris Department of Justice cut a deal with al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Sheik Mohammed to avoid the death penalty.
"As someone who enlisted in the Marines to serve after 9/11, that is ridiculous, but it’s not surprising.
"Just think about the point that we’ve gotten to: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have weaponized the Department of Justice to go after their political opponents, but they’re cutting a sweetheart deal with 9/11 terrorists."
Mohammed and al-Hawsawi were captured on March 1, 2003, in a joint CIA and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence operation in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi.
Walid bin Attash was captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in April 2003.
Mohammed was held in secret CIA prisons up until his transfer to Guantánamo Bay in September 2006.
However, before he was moved to Guantánamo, government officials interrogated Mohammed and his accomplices for years, torturing them and keeping them isolated in undisclosed locations.
Mohammed endured 183 rounds of waterboarding - a form of torture where a person experiences the sensation of drowning when water is poured over a cloth covering their face.
TERROR ATTACKS
At least 2,753 people died at the site of the World Trade Center, where two planes crashed into the towers on September 11, 2001.
A third plane hit the Pentagon, while a fourth, which was planned to strike , crashed in a field in after crew members and passengers stormed the cockpit.
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The heinous attacks sparked the war on terror after President George W. Bush ordered the US military to invade and in search of the terrorists responsible.
9/11 timeline of events
On September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda operatives coordinated a terrorist attack against the United States, hijacking four commerical airplanes and crashing them into the Twin Towers and Pentagon.
Timeline:
- 5:45 am: Two hijackers get through security in Portland, Maine, and board a flight to Boston, where they will link up with three more hijackers and check in for American Airlines Flight 11 to Los Angeles.
- 7:59 am: American Airlines Flight 11 takes off. The plane is carrying 76 passengers, 11 crew members, and five hijackers.
- 8:15 am: United Airlines Flight 175, carrying 51 passengers, nine crew, and five hijackers, takes off from Boston to Los Angeles.
- 8:20 am: American Airlines Flight 77 takes off from Washington DC Dulles to Los Angeles. The plane is carrying 53 passengers, six crew members, and five hijackers.
- 8:42 am: United Airlines Flight 93 takes off from Newark. The plane is carrying 33 passengers, seven crew members, and four hijackers. The flight was bound for San Francisco.
- 8:46 am: Flight 11 crashes into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
- 9:03 am: Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
- 9:36 am: Vice President Dick Cheney is evacuated by Secret Service agents to an undisclosed location.
- 9:37 am: Flight 77 hits the Pentagon building in Washington DC.
- 9:45 am: The US Capitol and White House are both evacuated.
- 9:59 am: The South Tower is the first to collapse after burning for around 56 minutes.
- 10:03 am: United Airlines flight 93 crashes into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The passengers and crew got together and stormed the cockpit of the hijacked plane. All on board are killed.
- 10:28 am: The North Tower collapses.
- 8:30 pm: President George W. Bush addresses the US from the White House regarding the attacks. Almost 3,000 Americans died in the terror attacks.