CNN
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The U.S. government plans to appeal a military judge’s ruling that a plea deal for a suspected 9/11 co-conspirator at Guantanamo Bay, which was rescinded by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, is valid, a defense official said. It was revealed on Saturday.
The official said prosecutors are expected to ask the judge, Col. Matthew McCall, to suspend court proceedings so they can appeal the verdict. The defendants could enter guilty pleas as early as next week after McCall ruled Wednesday that Austin acted too late to rescind the plea agreement and make it “valid and enforceable.” I was planning to.
The United States is investigating the government and its alleged co-conspirators (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and conspirators Walid bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed). After more than two years of negotiations with Mr. Adam Al-Housawi, they reached a plea bargain in July. . The agreement allows the men to avoid the death penalty by pleading guilty and being sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors said in a letter at the time that the deal was “the best path to closure and justice in this case.”
Austin abruptly rescinded his plea deal in August, insisting that “the responsibility for such an important decision should be mine.” He also stripped responsibility from the convening authority of military commissions that run military tribunals at Guantanamo.
The plea deal faced bipartisan opposition from members of Congress and some groups representing 9/11 victims who have called on the U.S. government to carry out the death penalty.
“While some in our community may disagree, I don’t think the Biden administration should have tried to terminate these agreements in the first place,” Brett Eagleson, president of 9/11 Justice, told CNN. said in a provided statement. earlier this week. “It does nothing to ease our pain or bring us closure. No one listens to what we really want or need, and it ends.”
Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union praised Wednesday’s ruling, saying it allowed the case to move forward.
“As a nation, we must move forward with judicial proceedings and sentencing hearings designed to answer the questions of the victims’ families,” ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a statement. “They have a right to transparency and finality about what happened to their loved ones.”
The case has been stalled for 20 years since Mr. Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 on suspicion of involvement in terrorist attacks. For years, the United States has been trying to decide how to deal with the torture perpetrated against Mr. Mohammed and others in secret CIA prisons in the 2000s, delaying military trials. The issue raised legal questions for prosecutors as to whether evidence obtained through torture would be admissible in court.
The trial was scheduled to begin on January 11, 2021, but the date was postponed again due to the resignation of two judges and delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Negotiations regarding the plea agreement began in March 2022.
CNN’s Kaanita Iyer, Oren Liebermann, Lauren del Valle and Evan Perez contributed to this report.
