The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks and two other terrorists being held in Guantánamo Bay will be spared the death penalty under a deal with prosecutors, it was revealed Wednesday.
The announcement was a bitter pill to swallow for victims’ families who have anxiously awaited the conclusion of the case for nearly 24 years — many of whom felt death was the only appropriate punishment for the perpetrators of the heinous attacks.
A spokesperson for the Office of Military Commissions (OMC), which is prosecuting the case, confirmed it had entered into pre-trial agreements with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the accused principal architect of the al Qaeda attacks — and two alleged co-conspirators, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, all of whom have been held at the US military prison on the coast of Cuba since 2003.
“In exchange for removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three Accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet,” said a letter signed by Rear Adm. Aaron C. Rugh, chief prosecutor for the OMC, and sent to victims’ families Wednesday.
News that the death penalty was no longer on the table for the suspects — whose alleged actions killed nearly 3,000 in the worst terror attack on US soil in American history — came as a gut punch to victims’ families.
“I am very disappointed. We waited patiently for a long time. I wanted the death penalty — the government has failed us,” Daniel D’Allara, whose twin brother, John, was one of 23 NYPD cops killed the day of the attacks, told The Post.
Retired police officer Jim Smith, husband of Moira Smith, the only female NYPD police officer who died on Sept. 11, said he felt like he had been “kicked in the balls.”
“The prosecution and families have waited 23 years to have our day in court to put on the record what these animals did to our loved ones. They took that opportunity away from us,” the anguished widower said.
“They committed the worst crime in the history of our country, they should receive the highest penalty.”
Retired cop Kathy Vigiano, wife of NYPD Detective Joseph Vigiano, who was killed on 9/11, said: “I am angry and disappointed that enemy combatants who killed thousands of Americans in our homeland are now able to exploit the US judicial system to their benefit, receiving support from American taxpayers for shelter, food, and healthcare for the rest of their lives.”
Lloyd Austin, one of the architects of the destruction of the US military, actually did something right for a change.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday overrode a plea agreement reached earlier this week for the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two other defendants, reinstating them as death-penalty cases.
The move comes two days after the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, announced that the official appointed to oversee the war court, retired Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, had reached plea deals with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accused accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, in the attacks.
Letters sent to families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the al-Qaida attacks said the plea agreement stipulated the three would serve life sentences at most.
Austin wrote in an order released Friday night that “in light of the significance of the decision,” he had decided that the authority to make a decision on accepting the plea agreements was his. He nullified Escallier’s approval.
Some families of the attack’s victims condemned the deal for cutting off any possibility of full trials and possible death penalties. Republicans were quick to fault the Biden administration for the deal, although the White House said after it was announced it had no knowledge of it.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a member of the Armed Services Committee, earlier Friday had condemned the plea deal on social media as “disgraceful.” Cotton said he had introduced legislation that would mandate the 9/11 defendants face trial and the possibility of the death penalty.
Mohammed, whom the U.S. describes as the main plotter of the attack that crashed hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, and the other two defendants had been expected to formally enter their pleas under the deal as soon as next week.
The U.S. military commission overseeing the cases of five defendants in the Sept. 11 attacks has been stuck in pre-trial hearings and other preliminary court action since 2008.
………Lawyers for the two sides have been exploring a negotiated resolution to the case for about 1 1/2 years. President Joe Biden blocked an earlier proposed plea bargain in the case last year, when he refused to offer requested presidential guarantees that the men would be spared solitary confinement and provided trauma care for the torture they underwent while in CIA custody.
A fourth Sept. 11 defendant at Guantanamo had been still negotiating on a possible plea agreement.
Khalid Sheik Mohammad and every other piece of shit muzzie terrorist at GITMO should have been executed by having bombs strapped to their asses and blown to smithereens.