Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of orchestrating the 9/11 Al-Qaeda attacks on the United States in 2001, agreed to plead guilty, the Defence Department reported.
Mohammed and his two accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, are expected to enter their guilty pleas at a military commission in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as early as next week.
Defence lawyers demanded that the men receive life imprisonment in exchange for pleading guilty, according to letters from the federal government. Pentagon officials, however, refused to immediately release the full terms of the plea bargain.
The US agreement with the men came more than 16 years after their prosecution for the Al-Qaeda attack commenced. It took place more than 20 years after militants hijacked four commercial airliners and used them as fuel-filled missiles, aiming three of them at the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon.
War on Terror
The attack also triggered what President George W. Bush’s administration called the War on Terror, leading to US military invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and years of US operations against armed extremist groups in other parts of the Middle East.
US attack and retaliation led to the direct overthrow of two governments, devastated communities and countries caught up in the battle, and played a part in galvanising the 2011 Arab Spring popular uprisings against Middle Eastern governments.
American authorities point to Mohammed as the author of using planes as weapons. He allegedly received approval from al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to plan the 9/11 hijackings and killings. US forces killed bin Laden in 2011.
The government captured Mohammed in 2003. He was subjected to water torture 183 times while in CIA custody before being taken to Guantanamo, as well as other torture and coercive questioning. Torture accounted for much of the proceeding delay, along with the courtroom’s location a plane ride away from the United States.
Daphne Eviatar, director of the US human rights group Amnesty International, stated on Wednesday that she welcomed news of some accountability for the attacks. She also called on the Biden administration to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre holding people taken into custody in the so-called War on Terror.
The Biden administration must also take all necessary measures to ensure that a program of state-sanctioned enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment will never be perpetrated by the United States again.
