9/11 'mastermind' Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reaches plea deal

Pakistani Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, considered the mastermind of the September 11 2001 attacks, has accepted a plea deal, the Pentagon announced on Wednesday. The US authorities did not provide details but several media say the deal allows Mohammed to avoid a trial where he would face the death penalty, in exchange for a life sentence.

The deal includes two of the prisoner's co-defendants, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, who have also been held for two decades at Guantanamo, Cuba. The three are accused of terrorism and the murder of nearly 3,000 people in the attacks in New York and Washington.

The men have never been tried, with the process of bringing them to trial bogged down over whether the torture they endured in secret CIA prisons tainted the evidence against them.

In March 2022, the prisoners’ lawyers confirmed that negotiations were under way for a possible plea deal, rather than a military trial at Guantanamo. The defendants sought, in particular, a guarantee that they would remain at Guantanamo, rather than be transferred to a federal penitentiary on the mainland in solitary confinement.

^{© PHOTO AFP}