Biden Admin Asks Court to Stop 9/11 Plea Hearing

The Department of Justice in Washington on Jan. 14, 2020.Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times

The Biden administration is urging a federal appeals court to halt a plea deal that would have the alleged architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and two alleged accomplices avoiding the death penalty.

The government’s motion, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, seeks to stop a plea hearing in the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from proceeding. The hearing is scheduled for Friday at Guantanamo Bay, where the suspected terrorist has been held since 2006.

While details of the agreements remain under seal, Tuesday’s motion suggests that Mohammed and two co-defendants, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, would plead guilty to the seven charges against them that include murder, conspiracy, hijacking aircraft, and terrorism. Five of those charges are punishable by death.

In exchange, the three men would likely receive life sentences, avoiding a trial that could result in the death penalty.

The U.S. Department of Justice argued in its motion that accepting the pleas would cause “irreparable harm” to Americans wanting to try them for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

“The government and the public will lose the opportunity to ... seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world,” it warned.

The accused, according to the department, would not suffer significant harm if their hearing is delayed, given that the prosecution has been ongoing since 2012 and the pre-trial agreements would still likely result in life sentences for them.

“A short delay to allow this Court to weigh the merits of the government’s request in this momentous case will not materially harm the respondents,” the petition reads.

Mohammed is said to have presented al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden with a string of major plots against the United States, where he had attended university.

After being captured in Pakistan in 2003, Mohammed spent three years in CIA custody, where he underwent interrogation with waterboarding, before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.

Bin Attash allegedly trained two of the hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, while Hawsawi is suspected of managing the finances for the operation. Both were captured in Pakistan in 2003 and held in secret CIA prisons before being transferred to Guantanamo.

Legal Wrangling

The case against the three men has faced years of delays, with much of the legal wrangling focused on whether they could receive fair trials after being subjected to CIA torture.

The plea agreements would move towards a faster case resolution but also sparked criticism among the victims’ families as well as lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Vice President-elect JD Vance, who described the agreements as a “sweetheart deal with 9/11 terrorists.”

This Dec. 8, 2008 courtroom drawing by artist Janet Hamlin and reviewed by the U.S. military, shows Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, center, and co-defendant Walid Bin Attash, left, attending a pre-trial session at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. Janet Hamlin, Pool/AP Photo

In November 2024, a military judge ruled the deals valid, overturning an earlier directive from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to rescind them. The ruling was upheld in December, with a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review stating that Austin lacked the authority to throw out the deals.

Even if Austin did have such authority, his intervention came too late, the panel noted.

When asked at a press briefing why he had tried to revoke the plea deals, Austin said he believed the gravity of this case warranted his direct involvement as defense secretary.

“I thought at that point in time that it was important enough that I should be the person to make the decision on this,” he said. “And I still feel that same way. Again, I won’t comment on anything that could happen in the future, but again I will just emphasize that I still feel the same way.”