US Cancels Plea Deal for 9/11 Terror Plotter Two Days After Guilty Plea Agreement

Ministry of National Defense Withdraws Agreement to Reduce Sentences to Life Imprisonment for 3 Individuals
"Deal with Terrorists" Seems Influenced by Negative Public Opinion

The U.S. government canceled a 'guilty plea deal with conditional sentence reduction' agreement within two days for three defendants who played a key role in the simultaneous terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Department of Defense near Washington by the Islamic extremist group al-Qaeda in 2001.

On the 2nd (local time), U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the withdrawal of the guilty plea agreement reached with the U.S. Department of Defense for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is imprisoned at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo, Cuba, on charges of planning the 9/11 attacks, along with accomplices Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.

Sketch of the Military Tribunal Trial of the 9/11 Terror Suspect
[Image Source=EPA Yonhap News Archive Photo]

Earlier, on the 31st of last month, Mohammed and the other two had agreed with U.S. authorities to plead guilty to all charges, including the murder of 2,976 people listed in the indictment, in exchange for life imprisonment instead of the death penalty. In a memo sent to the Guantanamo military court supervisor, the U.S. signatory of the agreement, Secretary Austin explained his decision to withdraw the agreement, stating, "Given the importance of matters involving 'pre-trial agreements' with defendants, such decisions fall under my jurisdiction."

The main defendant, Mohammed, is a jihadist who received engineering education in the U.S. and is accused of planning the simultaneous 9/11 attacks, including devising a plan to hijack passenger planes and crash them into buildings. U.S. prosecutors claim that he proposed this idea to Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader in 1996, and subsequently helped train and direct the hijackers.

Mohammed was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003 and was held in a secret CIA prison, where he was subjected to waterboarding 183 times, until he was transferred to Guantanamo in September 2006. Mohammed and his two accomplices were all arrested in 2003, but formal trials did not begin due to controversies over the CIA's use of illegal methods such as torture during interrogations, and only pretrial hearings were conducted for over ten years. Mohammed's defense has consistently argued that statements obtained through CIA torture cannot be used as evidence in court.

The reason the U.S. government withdrew the guilty plea deal with conditional sentence reduction just two days after reaching it is believed to be due to concerns over negative public opinion about making a kind of 'deal' with figures who played a leading role in the worst mainland attack in U.S. history. Especially with the presidential election three months away on November 5, it appears that the potential impact of negative public opinion surrounding this agreement on voter sentiment was also taken into consideration.