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The United States has reached plea deals with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two others accused of planning the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
The agreement abolishes the death penalty.
The United States has reached plea deals with the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and two other defendants who allegedly plotted the 2001 terror attacks, according to the Pentagon.
The pretrial agreement, reached after 27 months of negotiations, vacated the death sentences for Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa Al Hawsawi, according to a letter from prosecutors obtained by CNN. The letter was sent to families of 9/11 victims and survivors shortly before the Pentagon announced the news in a press release on Wednesday night.
After beginning negotiations in March 2022, the three agreed to plead guilty to all charges outlined in the indictment, including the murder of 2,976 people, their families reported.
According to the letter, Mohammed and his co-defendants plan to plead guilty at a plea-bargaining hearing that could be held as early as next week.
“We understand that the circumstances of this case as a whole, and this news in particular, will understandably provoke intense emotions, and we also understand that the decision to enter into a pretrial agreement will invite a range of reactions among the thousands of families who have lost loved ones,” prosecutors wrote in the letter. “Reaching a pretrial agreement after 12 years of pretrial litigation has not been taken lightly. However, it is our collective, reasoned and good faith judgment that this resolution represents the best path to finality and justice in this case.”
Families of 9/11 victims slammed the plea deal.
Grieving families of heroic emergency workers killed in the September 11 attacks slammed a plea deal reached on Wednesday that will spare three terrorism suspects, including the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the death penalty.
“I feel like I’ve been kicked in the balls,” said Jim Smith, a former New York Police Department officer whose wife, Moira Smith, was the only female officer killed in the terrorist attack.
“Prosecutors and families have waited 23 years for their day in court to have a written record of what these animals did to our loved ones,” Smith told the Post.
“They robbed us of that opportunity,” he said of the US government, adding of the suspects: “They committed the worst crime in the history of our country. They deserve the strongest punishment.”
…
“I am outraged and disappointed that enemy combatants who murdered thousands of Americans in their homeland can now use the U.S. justice system to their own advantage and receive housing, food and medical care from U.S. taxpayers for the rest of their lives,” said Cathy Villano, a former police officer whose NYPD Detective Joseph Villano was killed in the attack.
J.D. Vance slammed the plea deal, saying, “I heard today that the Biden-Harris Administration’s Department of Justice has made a deal with Al Qaeda terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to avoid the death penalty…As someone who joined the Marines after 9/11, this is absurd, but not surprising.”
Sen. J.D. Vance, Trump’s running mate, during a campaign speech in Glendale, Arizona, on Wednesday blasted the plea deals made by the three perpetrators of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks who are awaiting trial in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“Just today we heard that the Biden-Harris Department of Justice made a deal with al-Qaida terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to avoid the death penalty. It was reported today,” Vance said. “As someone who joined the Marines after 9/11, this is absurd, but not surprising.”
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