US judge reinstates plea deal for 9/11 'mastermind'

Photo: Agence France-Presse This photo obtained on March 1, 2003, shows Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged organizer of the September 11, 2001 attacks, shortly after his capture.

Agence France-Presse in Washington

Posted at 9:35

• United States

A US military judge has declared valid the plea bargain for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, considered the “mastermind” of the September 11, 2001 attacks, as well as for two co-defendants, a decision that was revoked in early August by the Pentagon after the strong emotion caused among many relatives of the nearly 3,000 victims.

“The military judge has decided that the pre-trial agreements for the three defendants are admissible and applicable,” a US official explained to AFP, on condition of anonymity.

This agreement, validated Wednesday by the judge, should spare these three men detained on the US military base at Guantanamo, the death penalty.

It was not immediately clear whether prosecutors would appeal the decision.

“We are reviewing the decision and have nothing further to add at this time,” Pentagon spokesman Gen. Pat Ryder said in a statement, three months after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked the same agreement.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi are charged with terrorism and the killing of nearly 3,000 people in the attacks on American soil, one of the most traumatic episodes in U.S. history.

Most people know Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from the photo taken of him the night he was captured in 2003, disheveled hair and bushy moustache, wearing white pajamas.

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In exchange for a life sentence—according to American media—Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who had boasted to investigators about having imagined and organized the deadliest attacks in history, would, thanks to this agreement, avoid a trial where he would face the death penalty.

This decision, announced at the end of July, shocked many victims' relatives and sparked virulent criticism in the Republican camp, in a country in the midst of a presidential campaign.

The Republican leader of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, considered that this announcement had the effect of “a slap in the face” for the victims' families.

“I have decided, given the importance of the decision to enter into pretrial plea agreements with the defendants […], that the responsibility for such a decision should rest with me,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explained in a brief memo in early August.

“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I am hereby revoking the three plea agreements” negotiated, it was further specified.

The Pentagon chief had, a few days later, said he wanted a trial.

“The families of the victims, our service members and the American people deserve to see the military commission trials in this case go to trial,” he said at a news conference.

The terms of the settlement were not made public. According to the New York Times, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accomplices had agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy in exchange for a life sentence, instead of a trial that could have led to their execution.

The three men were never tried, as the proceedings to bring them to trial were bogged down by the question of whether the torture they suffered in secret CIA prisons tainted the evidence against them.

The 9/11 cases languished for years, and the defendants remained detained at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo. This prison, where up to about 800 prisoners were held, has largely tarnished the image of the United States internationally.

Joe Biden had expressed the wish to close Guantánamo, before his election. But the military base remained open.

A Pakistani raised in Kuwait, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, known as “KSM” (S for Sheikh in English), was transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006. “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z,” he proudly confessed before the military tribunal.

He also said he had been behind thirty other operations including attacks linked to al-Qaeda in Bali and Kenya as well as the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl.