Biden Admin Asks Court to Block Plea Deals for 9/11 Defendants

The Biden administration on Tuesday urged a federal appeals court to reject a plea deal for three 9/11 defendants that would eliminate the possibility of a death penalty sentence.

Why It Matters

The defendants involved in the potential plea deal include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States—and two co-defendants.

What To Know

In a brief filed with a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., the Justice Department argued that accepting guilty pleas from Mohammed and his co-defendants would cause irreparable harm. The government contended it would lose the chance for a public trial and the ability 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.”

A military judge at Guantanamo Bay, along with a military appeals panel, denied Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s attempt to block the plea agreement, ruling that he lacked the authority to overturn it after the senior Pentagon official overseeing Guantanamo approved it in July. Mohammed was set to formally plead guilty on Friday with his two co-defendants scheduled to follow next week.

9/11 Defendants’ Prolonged Legal Proceedings

The Justice Department argued in its brief that a short delay would not harm the defendants, noting the prosecution has been underway since 2012. The plea agreements, if finalized, would likely result in lengthy prison sentences, potentially keeping the men incarcerated for life.

The 9/11 attacks, which claimed nearly 3,000 lives, prompted U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq as part of then-President George W. Bush’s so-called war on terror.

Military prosecutors and defense lawyers for Mohammed and the two other co-defendants finalized plea agreements following two years of government-sanctioned negotiations. The deals were publicly disclosed late last summer.

Advocates of the plea agreements view them as a practical solution to the prolonged and legally fraught proceedings against the defendants at the U.S. military commission in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Pretrial hearings for Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi have dragged on for over a decade.

What People Are Saying

In their argument on Tuesday, the U.S. government said: “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.”

What’s Next

It is currently unclear how the court will respond to the recent move by the Biden administration.

This article includes reporting from The Associated Press.