When news broke that the three terrorists who masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks had reached plea deals with prosecutors on Wednesday that would spare them capital punishment, the reaction was immediate.
The three men, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Walid Mohammed Saleh Mubarak bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam Al Hawsawi, were awaiting trial in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but reached an agreement with the military commissions convening authority, according to Susan Escalier of the Department of Defense (DOD).
The three defendants are accused of providing training, funding and other assistance to 19 terrorists who hijacked airliners on September 11, 2001, and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
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On September 11, 2001, a hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center. (Seth McAllister/AFP via Getty Images)
Relatives of the roughly 3,000 people killed during the attack reacted to the news on Wednesday with anger and dismay.
“I’m very disappointed. We’ve waited patiently for a long time. I wanted the death penalty. The government has failed us,” said Daniel Dallara, whose twin brother is John, an NYPD officer killed in the attack. New York Post.
Pedestrians in Lower Manhattan watch smoke rise from the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. The masterminds of the terrorist attacks reached a plea deal with prosecutors on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Amy Sanchetta)
“I feel like I’ve been kicked in the balls,” retired Jim Smith said. Police Officer The husband of Moira Smith, the only female police officer killed on 9/11, told The Washington Post, “Prosecutors and families have waited 23 years for a day in court to document what these animals did to our loved ones.”
Brett Eagleson, who was 15 when his father, Bruce, was killed while working at the World Trade Center in New York City, told the Boston Herald that news of the plea deal “came at a bad time.”
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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (FBI | Getty Images)
“This is just a move to put 9/11 in a box and forget about it,” he said.
Meanwhile, lawmakers and other public officials slammed the Biden administration over the deal.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called the plea deal a “shameful act” and blasted the Biden administration.
“Any execution short of the death penalty is a complete miscarriage of justice. This administration has repeatedly shown weakness to its enemies,” he wrote to X.
Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, who was former President Trump’s running mate in this year’s presidential election, blasted the plea deal in a speech to supporters at a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, on Wednesday night.
Firefighters among the rubble after the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. (Courtesy of Frank Paplia)
“We need a president who will kill terrorists, not negotiate with terrorists,” he told his supporters.
“Their crimes deserve the ultimate punishment and there should be no plea bargains or leniency whatsoever,” said Patrick Hendry, president of the New York City Police Benevolent Association.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-Ill.) said the three defendants have American blood on their hands.
“But it appears they avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty, and many other conditions could have been imposed,” Graham wrote on social media. “From the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan to the collapse of our borders to strengthening Iran, the Biden-Harris Administration has been a dream team for terrorists and rogue nations like Iran.”
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House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, called the agreement an “insult” to the families of those who died.
“In the weeks that followed, America mourned as emergency workers sifted through ashes at Ground Zero, the Pentagon and the Shanksville crash site,” he wrote. “For more than two decades, the families of those killed by terrorists have waited for justice. This plea deal is an affront to them. They deserve better from a Biden-Harris Administration.”
