9/11 Defendants Might Avoid Death Penalty, Biden Administration Says

An image of a courtroom shows Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (C) and co-defendant Walid Bin Attash (L) attending a pre-trial session Dec. 8, 2008 in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Sketch by Janet Hamlin-Pool/Getty Images

The defendants in the 9/11 terrorist attacks might avoid the death penalty under plea agreements that are being considered, the Biden administration has said in a letter to families of the victims of the Sept. 11,

“The Office of the Chief Prosecutor has been negotiating and is considering entering into pre-trial agreements (PTAs),” the letter reads, according to The Associated Press. While no plea agreement “has been finalized, and may never be finalized, it is possible that a PTA in this case would remove the possibility of the death penalty.”

The letter, dated Aug. 1, was received by some families this week. They have until Aug. 21 to contact the FBI’s victim services division for clarifications regarding the potential plea agreement.

There are five defendants in the case, including the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The suspected terrorists have been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp since 2006.

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks were carried out by a group of terrorists who seized control of passenger jets and crashed two of them into the World Trade Center towers in New York. A third plane was flown into the Pentagon.

A fourth jetliner that may have been headed for the U.S. Capitol or the White House was diverted by heroic passengers who attempted to storm the cockpit; the plane eventually crashed into an empty field in Pennsylvania.

The 2001 attacks, the deadliest in U.S. history, killed 2,977 people. It was Mr. Mohammed who proposed the idea to Osama bin Laden, the leader of the al-Qaeda terrorist group at the time.

He was then authorized by bin Laden to carry out the attack. The four other defendants are alleged to have aided the hijackers.

Some relatives of the people killed on 9/11 have expressed outrage that the case could end short of a verdict.

Jim Riches, who lost his firefighter son Jimmy, told AP that he laughed bitterly after receiving the letter.

“How can you have any faith in it?”

“[The letter] gives us little hope,” he said. Mr. Riches pointed out that the people who carried out the attacks “are still alive” while his and others’ children are dead.

The defendants had sought a plea bargain during the Trump administration, stating that they would plead guilty and cooperate with the government’s investigations into al-Qaeda and 9/11.

However, the Trump administration ruled out the possibility of entering into plea bargains.

The Mastermind Behind 9/11

Mr. Mohammed, also known as the “CEO of al-Qaeda,” is from Pakistan. He was arrested in March 2003 during a raid conducted by a joint U.S.–Pakistani team in a safe house near Pakistan’s capital city of Islamabad.

In his interrogation with U.S. officials, Mr. Mohammed said that he was “responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z,” according to the New York Post. During his arraignment, he pleaded guilty for his role in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A fiery blasts rocks the World Trade Center after being hit by two planes on Sept. 11, 2001, in New York City. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Mr. Mohammed has also admitted to other crimes, including decapitating Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl; a nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia; and another attack on the World Trade Center in 1993.

In a 2019 interview with the New York Post, Terry McDermott, a co-author of “The Hunt for KSM,” said that the main reason Mr. Mohammed wasn’t brought to trial was the torture he underwent while detained by U.S. authorities.

Defense lawyers have insisted that the confessions made by Mr. Mohammed are worthless, given that such statements were obtained after CIA operatives tortured him. The confessions were made when he was in custody at Guantanamo Bay.

“The whole thing would have been over pretty quickly if it weren’t for prior torture of the accused,” Mr. McDermott said.

The Case Drags On

Over the years, the case has seen multiple defense lawyers and judges come and go. Much of the hearings were spent on determining how much of the testimony given by Sheikh Mohammed and other defendants should be considered inadmissible because of the torture they were subjected to.

Mr. Mohammed is said to have been waterboarded 183 times while in CIA custody. Waterboarding is a torture method involving pouring large quantities of water over a cloth covering the face of a captive, causing the sensation of drowning.

Civilians flee the area as a tower of the World Trade Center collapses in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Hearings on the 9/11 case are scheduled to resume on Sept. 18.

Some of the relatives of the victims of the 9/11 attack are looking forward to a quicker case resolution, given how long it already has dragged out.

In an interview with NPR in March, Glenn Morgan, 60, whose father died in the World Trade Center collapse, said that he wants the suspects sentenced to death. But after two decades without the case going anywhere, he wants to at least see a plea deal and justice.

“More people in my family have passed away, and those people have not seen a guilty verdict for these individuals responsible for killing my dad ... so the clock is ticking,” he said.

Mr. Morgan also expressed concern that the defendants may die without being found guilty if the case drags on more.

“That would be so much more tragic than a plea agreement,” he said. “And that’s a tragedy that’s just completely avoidable. And shame on us if we as Americans, or our politicians, can’t get out of our own [expletive] way.”