Protests by victims
Pentagon withdraws deal with 9/11 suspects
03.08.2024 – 03:03 Reading time: 3 min.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad during his arrest in 2003: He has been in prison in Guantánamo since 2006. (Source: IMAGO/Balkis Press/ABACA)
The Pentagon had proposed an agreement to three suspects in Guantánamo. But Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has now withdrawn this agreement.
US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has withdrawn an original offer to the masterminds of the attacks on the World Trade Center. Initially, it was said that three suspects would be offered a waiver of the death penalty if they pleaded guilty. This had sparked criticism from victims of the terrorist attacks and politicians.
Now Austin announced: “I have concluded that given the importance of the decision to enter into pretrial agreements with the defendants in the above-referenced case, the responsibility for such a decision rests with me as the primary convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009. Effective immediately, I hereby revoke your authority to enter into a pretrial agreement in the above-referenced case and reserve that authority to myself. In exercise of my authority, I hereby rescind, effective immediately, the three pretrial agreements you signed on July 31, 2024 in the above-referenced case.”
According to the US government, the alleged chief planner of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and other co-defendants wanted to enter into a plea agreement with the judiciary and plead guilty. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants had agreed to such an agreement, the US Department of Defense announced on Wednesday.
The burning World Trade Center in New York in 2001 (archive photo). Three suspects in the terrorist attack were initially made an offer. (Source: Frances M. Roberts/imago-images-bilder)
The chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability in the US House of Representatives, James Comer, had sharply criticized the agreement in a letter to US President Joe Biden. Comer also demanded information on whether the government had played a role in negotiating the deal. Biden’s National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, denied this on Thursday when asked by journalists.
Republicans immediately criticized the agreement. “They (…) are signaling to our enemies that the United States is not prepared to take tough action against those who attack our country,” wrote Comer. He also complained about an “absolute lack of transparency.” His party colleague Mike Johnson, who chairs the House of Representatives, had already expressed similar criticism: Biden’s administration had done “the unthinkable.” The victims’ families “deserve better.”
After the agreement was announced, several first responders and relatives of victims who did not agree with the deal also spoke out in the US media. The New York Fire Department’s union said its members felt “betrayed and disgusted.”
In 2002, the United States opened a prison in Guantánamo Bay on Cuba’s southern coast for suspects accused of involvement in the terrorist attack. Many were detained without charge or trial, which led to international criticism. Since its opening, over 700 people have been detained at Guantánamo. Over the years, many of these inmates have been released, repatriated to their home countries, or transferred to other countries.
A US flag flies behind a barbed wire fence in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. (Source: Maren Hennemuth/dpa/dpa)
Three prisoners were considered masterminds
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad was born in Kuwait in 1964. He has an engineering degree and is said to have joined Islamist movements in the 1980s. In the 1990s he joined al-Qaeda and worked closely with Osama bin Laden.
Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash comes from Yemen. He is accused in particular of having been involved in the logistics and planning of the attack on the US warship USS Cole, in which 17 US sailors died. He is also said to have played a role in the planning of the attacks of September 11, 2001, particularly in supporting the hijackers.
Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi, who comes from Saudi Arabia, is said to have been responsible, among other things, for providing financial support to the 9/11 hijackers. He is suspected of transferring funds and helping to organize the trip to the USA of the hijackers of the planes hijacked on September 11.
On September 11, 2001, around 3,000 people were killed in the worst terrorist attack to date in the United States. Islamic terrorists flew three hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington. A fourth plane crashed in the state of Pennsylvania.
