AP
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The Biden administration on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to block a plea deal that would have avoided the death penalty for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The Justice Department said in briefs filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia that if the guilty pleas of Muhammad and his two co-defendants in the September 11, 2001 attacks are accepted, the government will suffer irreparable harm. He insisted that he receive it.
The report denies the government the opportunity to hold a public trial and “seek the death penalty for the three men accused of a heinous act of mass murder that killed thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world.” He said it would be done.
The Pentagon negotiated and approved a plea deal, but later rejected it. Defense lawyers argue that the agreement was already legally in effect and that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acted too late when the administration began efforts to break it.
When the appeal was filed on Tuesday, families of some of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the al-Qaeda attack said they would be traveling to the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hear Mr. Mohammed’s guilty plea, scheduled for Friday. They had already been assembled at the naval base. The remaining two were charged with minor roles in 9/11 and were scheduled to join the company next week.
Family members are divided on the agreement, with some saying it is the best solution for prosecutors, which have been mired in pretrial proceedings and legal and logistical difficulties for more than a decade. Some demanded trials, and some wanted executions.
Some legal experts say legal challenges posed by the case, including the torture the men suffered in CIA custody after their arrest, could mean older detainees will continue to face sentencing. It warns that there is a possibility of loss of sex.
Military prosecutors notified the victims’ families this summer that senior Pentagon officials overseeing Guantanamo had approved the plea deal after more than two years of negotiations. The agreement is “the best path to finality and justice,” military prosecutors said.
But some families and Republican lawmakers criticized the deal and the Biden administration for reaching it.
Austin has been unsuccessfully fighting since August to break the deal, arguing that decisions on the death penalty in attacks as serious as the September 11 plot should be made only by the secretary of defense. .
Guantanamo’s military judges and military appeals board rejected those efforts, saying they did not have the authority to renege on the agreement approved by senior Pentagon officials at Guantanamo.
Defense attorneys argued that the plea deal had been approved by Austin city officials and military prosecutors, and that Austin’s interference amounted to illegal political interference in the justice system.
The brief released by the Justice Department on Tuesday suggests that the indictment has been going on since 2012, and that the plea deal is likely to result in the defendants serving long, potentially life-long prison terms. However, the defendant stated that he would not suffer any disadvantage.
“A short delay for this court to consider the pros and cons of the government’s request in this important case will not cause significant harm to the defendants,” the government argued.
The Justice Department criticized a military commission judge’s ruling that it said “unreasonably curtailed” the defense secretary’s authority in “cases of extreme national importance.” The government’s filing states that preserving that authority is “a critical issue that justifies the issuance of extraordinary relief.”
