Families who lost loved ones in the 9/11 terror attacks are speaking out following plea deals reached with some of the attacks’ masterminds.
Joe Connor, whose cousin Steve Schragh was killed on 9/11 and whose father Frank was killed in the 1975 FALN terror attack at New York City’s Flounce Tavern, told Fox News Digital he finds the plea deal extremely concerning.
“This case left me very worried that there would be no justice for my cousin and the thousands of others who were killed that day and their families. My father’s terrorists, the FALN, were released. They were pardoned by the Clintons and President Obama,” Connor said. “It’s all about politics. At the time, I was worried that these guys were going to end up in a U.S. prison. I’m worried that someone is going to use politics to get these guys released.”
On Wednesday, prosecutors reached plea deals with the three ringleaders in the case. September 11 terrorist attacks The Department of Defense (DOD) said the people were awaiting trial in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
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Terry Strada, national chair of 9/11 Families United, said it appears the Biden administration is pressuring prosecutors to make plea deals. (Terry Strada/AP Photo/Amy Sanchetta)
According to the Defense Department, Susan Eskarie, the military commission’s convening authority, entered into pre-trial agreements with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Mohammed Saleh Mubarak bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam Al Hawsawi.
The defendants are accused of providing training, funding and other assistance to 19 terrorists who hijacked passenger planes 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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Terry Strada, whose husband, Tom, a 41-year-old bond broker, was killed when one of the hijacked planes crashed into the North Tower, said the terrorists got their wish but many families were left behind. (Terry Strada | Seth McAllister/AFP via Getty Images)
Terry Strada, whose husband, Tom, a 41-year-old bond broker, was killed when one of the hijacked planes crashed into the North Tower, said the terrorists got their wish but many families were left behind.
Strada, the national chair of 9/11 Families United, said it appears the Biden administration is pressuring prosecutors to make plea deals.
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“They want this out of their business because it’s an election year,” she told Fox News Digital. “They (the terrorists) committed this heinous crime against the United States. They should have been charged, tried and punished. Since when have those responsible for the murders been in charge?”
Some lawmakers have sharply criticized the Biden administration for the plea deals that spared three suspects in the 9/11 terror plot from the death penalty.
In a letter received from the federal government by the families of some 3,000 people who died instantly on the morning of September 11, the defense had asked for life sentences for the men in exchange for pleading guilty, The Associated Press reported.
The Military Commission Prosecutor’s Office, which is handling the case, said in a letter Wednesday to the families of 9/11 victims that the decision to accept the plea deal “was not taken lightly, but is our collective, rational and good faith judgment that this resolution is the final and best path to justice in this case.”
In exchange for pleading guilty to the deaths of 2,976 people, the defendants agreed to answer questions from the victims’ families about their roles in the attacks and their reasons for participating. The families have until Sept. 14 to submit their questions, according to the letter.
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Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is seen in this photo released by the FBI on October 10, 2001. (FBI | Getty Images)
Strada also expressed concern about keeping the defendants in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rather than transferring them to a maximum security prison in the United States.
“The kids get to exercise, walk outside, watch movies, pick their menu,” she said. “They have a great life in Guantanamo Bay. They have prayers, they have rugs, they have everything they want. Tom Strada will be greatly missed by his three children, who were 7, 4 and 4 days old when he died,” Strada said.
“No one is ever the same after a horrific terrorist attack,” she said. “Terrorism serves exactly that purpose: to terrify us to our core. What they inflict on us is a lifetime of pain and suffering.”
In September 2023, President Biden Forgive 9/11 The planners and co-conspirators avoided the possibility of the death penalty.
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The conditions the prisoners wanted Department of Defense Among the conditions they would accept were not to serve their sentences in solitary confinement and to be allowed to eat and pray with other Guantanamo Bay prisoners. They also wanted a privately run program to treat brain damage, sleep disorders and gastrointestinal problems allegedly caused by the CIA during interrogation before their transfer to Guantanamo Bay in 2006, according to a New York Times report at the time.
9/11 Families United appeared in court in New York City on Wednesday where they are suing Saudi Arabia for complicity in the attacks.
This attack resulted in: Worst terrorist attack Events in American history that took place on American soil.
