(Washington) The Biden administration asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to block a plea deal for suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that would spare him the risk of the death penalty in one of the deadliest attacks ever perpetrated in the United States.
Posted at 9:52 p.m.
Eric Tucker et Ellen Knickmeyer
Associated Press
The Justice Department argued in a brief filed with a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia that the government would suffer irreparable harm if guilty pleas were accepted for Mohammed and two co-defendants in the September 11 attacks. 2001.
He said the government would be denied the opportunity for a public trial and the opportunity to “seek the death penalty against three men accused of a heinous act of mass murder that left thousands dead and shocked society.” nation and the world.
The Defense Department negotiated and approved the plea agreement, but later repudiated it. Lawyers for the defendants argue that the deal is already legally in effect and that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who initiated the administration’s effort to reject it, acted too late.
When the appeal was filed Tuesday, families of nearly 3,000 people killed in al-Qaeda attacks were already gathered at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hear Mohammed’s guilty plea scheduled for Friday . The other two men, accused of lesser roles in September 11, were expected to enter pleas next week.
Family members are divided on the deal, with some seeing it as the best possible solution for a lawsuit mired for more than a decade in preliminary hearings and legal and logistical difficulties. Others demanded a trial and, they hoped, an execution.
Legal challenges
Some legal experts have warned that the legal challenges posed by the case, including the torture of the men in CIA custody after their capture, could prevent the aging detainees from facing a verdict and possible sentences.
Military prosecutors informed victims’ families this summer that the top Pentagon official overseeing Guantanamo had approved a plea deal after more than two years of negotiations. The deal was “the best path to finality and justice,” military prosecutors said.
Some family members and Republican lawmakers, however, condemned the deal and the Biden administration for entering into it.
Mr. Austin has fought unsuccessfully since August to reject the deal, saying a decision on the death penalty in an attack as serious as the 9/11 plot should only be made by the defense secretary.
A Guantanamo military judge and a military appeals board rejected those efforts, saying he lacked the authority to overturn the deal after it was approved by the Pentagon’s top official for Guantanamo.
Defense lawyers say the plea deal was approved by Mr. Austin’s own officials and military prosecutors and that his intervention amounted to illegal political interference in the justice system.
According to Tuesday’s Justice Department filing, the defendants would not be harmed by a short delay, given that the prosecution has been pending since 2012 and that the plea deals would likely lead to them serving lengthy prison sentences, potentially for the rest of their lives.
“A short delay to allow this Court to evaluate the merits of the government’s motion in this momentous case will not materially prejudice Defendants,” the government argued.
The Justice Department criticized the military commission judge for a decision that it said “inappropriately restricted” the defense secretary’s authority in a “matter of unique national importance.” Preserving this authority “is a matter of critical importance justifying the granting of an extraordinary measure,” according to the government’s filing.
