Biden Admin Urges Appeal Court to Block 9/11 Mastermind’s Plea Deal, Avoiding Death Penalty
The Biden administration has asked a federal appeals court to halt a plea bargain agreement for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, which could spare him the death penalty. In a filing submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Department of Justice argued that the government would be irreparably harmed if the guilty pleas for Mohammed and two co-defendants in the 2001 attacks were accepted.
The government asserted that it would be denied a public trial and the opportunity to "pursue capital punishment against three men accused of an atrocity of mass murder that claimed the lives of thousands and shook the nation and the world." The defense lawyers, however, maintain that the plea deal is already legally binding and that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acted too late in attempting to rescind it.
Family members of the nearly 3,000 victims who perished in the Al Qaeda attacks were gathered at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, when the appeal was filed on Tuesday, ready to hear Mohammed’s guilty plea scheduled for this Friday. The other two men, accused of lesser roles in the 9/11 attacks, were expected to enter their pleas the following week.
The families remain divided over the plea agreement, with some viewing it as the best resolution to a case stalled for over a decade due to legal and logistical challenges. Others demand a trial and potentially the death penalty. Legal experts have warned that challenges in the case, including the defendants’ torture under CIA custody after their capture, could hinder them from facing verdicts and sentences.
In the summer, military prosecutors informed the victims’ families that a senior Pentagon official overseeing Guantánamo had approved a plea deal after two years of negotiations. The agreement was deemed "the best path to completion and justice" by military prosecutors. However, some family members and Republican lawmakers criticized the agreement and the Biden administration for reaching it.
Secretary Austin has been unsuccessful in his efforts since August to rescind the agreement, arguing that a decision on the death penalty in a case as grave as the 9/11 plot should only be made by the Defense Secretary. Both a military judge in Guantánamo and a military appeals panel rejected these attempts, stating that Austin lacked the authority to undo the agreement once it had been approved by the senior Pentagon official for Guantánamo.
Defense lawyers contend that the plea deal was approved by Austin’s own military officials and prosecutors, and that his intervention was an illegal political interference in the judicial system. In its filing on Tuesday, the Department of Justice stated that the defendants would not be prejudiced by a brief delay, considering the case has been ongoing since 2012 and the plea deals would likely result in lengthy prison sentences, potentially for the rest of their lives.
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