September 11 attacks | The accused can plead guilty in January, the judge rules

(Washington) A US military judge at Guantanamo Bay has scheduled hearings in early January for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, and two co-defendants to plead guilty in exchange for life sentences, despite the secretary’s efforts to Defense, Lloyd Austin, to defeat these plea deals.

Wednesday’s ruling by Judge Matthew McCall, an Air Force colonel, in the government’s long-running prosecution of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people, signals an intensification of the battle for independence from the military commission of the American naval base in Cuba.

Judge McCall tentatively scheduled the plea hearings to take place over two weeks beginning January 6. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of having the idea to use commercial airliners for the attacks in the United States, is expected to enter his plea first, if Mr. Austin cannot prevent it.

The defense secretary is seeking to overturn plea deals with Mohammed and his co-defendants, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, which would put the government’s more than 20-year prosecution effort back on track. for a trial that could result in the death penalty.

Government prosecutors negotiated these plea deals under the auspices of the Defense Department for more than two years, and they received the necessary approval this summer from the top official who oversees the Guantanamo prosecutions. But the deals drew the ire of Senators Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton and other Republican leaders when the news became known.

Within days, Secretary Austin issued an executive order rescinding the plea agreements, saying that the severity of the September 11 attacks meant that any decision to waive the possibility of execution for the defendants must be made by him.

Defense lawyers argued that Mr. Austin had no legal authority to intervene and that his action amounted to outside interference that could call into question the legal validity of the proceedings at Guantanamo.

U.S. authorities had created a hybrid military commission, governed by a mix of civil and military laws and rules, to try those arrested in what the George W. Bush administration called its “war on terror.” » after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Al-Qaeda’s attacks were among the deadliest in U.S. history. Hijackers had hijacked four airliners; two crashed into the World Trade Center towers, another crashed into the Pentagon, and the fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania.

No legal basis

Judge McCall ruled last week that Secretary Austin had no legal basis to reject the plea deals and that his intervention was too late because it came after approval from Guantanamo’s top official had validated them.

Judge McCall’s ruling also confirmed that the government and Guantanamo’s top authority agreed to clauses in plea deals for Mohammed and another defendant that prohibit authorities from seeking the death penalty again, even if the agreements pleas were subsequently rejected for whatever reason. The clauses appeared to be drafted in advance in an attempt to respond to the type of standoff currently taking place.

The Defense Department informed the families last Friday that it would continue to fight these plea deals. Authorities intend to prevent the defendants from litigating and challenging the agreements, as well as Judge McCall’s decision, before a U.S. military commission, they said in a letter to the families of the 9/11 victims.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond Wednesday to questions about its possible appeal.

While the families of some of the victims and others are adamant that the 9/11 charges continue to trial and possible death sentences, legal experts say it is not certain that this could happen one day.

If the 9/11 cases clear the hurdles of trial, verdicts and convictions, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will likely hear many issues in a possible sentencing appeal of death.

Questions include whether US intelligence agencies (CIA) destroyed interrogation videos, whether rescinding Secretary Austin’s plea deal constituted unlawful interference, and whether whether the men’s torture tainted subsequent interrogations by “clean teams” of FBI agents that did not involve violence.