Washington (TDI): A US federal appeals court has nullified a plea deal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, reopening the possibility of the death penalty in the protracted legal case.
The ruling, handed down on Friday, follows nearly a year of legal wrangling over the agreement, which would have allowed Mohammed and two other defendants, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, to avoid capital punishment in return for guilty pleas.
The proposal drew immediate criticism from families of 9/11 victims, many of whom opposed removing the death penalty from consideration.
Former US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin halted the deal shortly after it was announced last year, insisting that both they and the US public deserved to see the defendants stand trial. Just two days after the deal became public, Austin ordered its withdrawal.
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Friday’s decision sends the case back into uncertainty, after years of delays and legal complications at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, where Mohammed and his co-accused have been held since 2006.
One of the major legal sticking points has been the defendants’ treatment during their early years in CIA custody. They were subjected to torture, a fact that has complicated efforts to prosecute them in a traditional legal setting. The plea deal was seen by some as a way to bypass those thorny issues and move the case forward.
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Mohammed, who studied engineering in the US, was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and held at secret CIA sites before being transferred to Guantanamo. He has claimed responsibility for planning the 9/11 attacks “from A to Z,” as well as involvement in other plots against the US
At its peak, Guantanamo held around 800 detainees. Most have since been released or transferred, but a few, including those linked to 9/11 remain in the notorious jail.
Farkhund Yousafzai is an Associate Editor at The Diplomatic Insight.
