The US Department of Defense has reached plea agreements with three of the five men charged in the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
After nearly two decades in Guantanamo Bay, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and two co-defendants have agreed to a plea deal. They will plead guilty in exchange for life sentences rather than facing the death penalty. The deal was announced by the Pentagon just hours ago, and NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer, who has covered the 9/11 case for years, has the details. Hi, Sacha.
SACHA PFEIFFER, BYLINE: Hello, Ailsa.
CHANG: Okay, tell us more about the contents of this plea agreement.
PFEIFFER: So in the Guantanamo world, this is a really big deal. This is a case that has dragged on for more than two decades. It’s increasingly looking like it’s never going to go to trial. It’s become a legal quagmire, a huge expense, taking up a ton of government resources.
CHANG: Yes.
PFEIFFER: So those three men are Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, as you said, Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. These are his accomplices. They have agreed to plead guilty to all charges – including the murder of nearly 3,000 people on 9/11. That means they will no longer face the threat of the death penalty, which, again, is looking increasingly unlikely, but they will spend the rest of their lives in prison. On the condition that they also answer questions from their families about their role in the 9/11 attacks and why they did it. So this is a big resolution to something that had become so deadlocked that it was all about the courts.
CHANG: Yeah, a big deal – I mean, it’s been almost 20 years. Why is this plea deal happening now?
PFEIFFER: So the government isn’t saying, but settlement talks started more than two years ago. Then they stalled because the Biden administration wouldn’t agree to some of the conditions that the defense attorneys wanted, like no solitary confinement if they were sentenced to life, and they wanted rehabilitation because all of these men were tortured in secret CIA prisons. Biden wouldn’t agree. There’s a theory that maybe Biden is now a lame duck who’s doing this on his way out the door, but the National Security Council put out a statement today saying that the president and the White House had no role in this process. So there’s that.
It’s also possible that the Pentagon was motivated by the possibility of a Trump presidency because if Trump were elected, it would be very unlikely that there would be a plea deal. Then again, this case has been going on for 20 years. It could be that the fatigue of going back and forth to Cuba, the months-long hearings in Cuba, has pushed the lawyers to do this. Also, the case has not gone well for the prosecutors. They’ve gotten a lot of pushback on introducing evidence obtained through torture, so they may have had to face the reality that they wouldn’t do well on the litigation front.
CHANG: There are a lot of factors that could be at play here – So what happens to the other 9/11 defendants who have not yet pleaded guilty?
PFEIFFER: There were five men in this case originally. About a year ago, one of them was dropped because he was found mentally incompetent. It’s still unclear how his case will proceed. The last man, Ammar al-Baluchi, I spoke to one of his lawyers today and she said that because this plea agreement does not address the no-incommunicado and no-rehabilitation-torture requirement, they don’t want to sign it. But she did say that they are continuing to discuss a settlement, so it could end up being settled.
CHANG: And what has been the reaction of the families of the 9/11 victims so far?
PFEIFFER: It’s divided. A lot of family members who really never believed that a trial would happen felt like a plea deal was the only way to end this. It was the only realistic solution. They would obviously be happy that this would finally end this. Some family members would really like to see the defendants executed, even though that’s not likely to happen. So they would be disappointed. Some of them were also hoping that a trial would reveal more details about the attack plan. But as I mentioned, Ailsa, the plea deal says that the defendants will have to answer questions from family members. So the family members can get the information they want.
CHANG: That’s NPR’s Sacha Pfeiffer. Thank you very much, Sacha.
PFEIFFER: You’re welcome, Ailsa. Thank you.
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