Sept. 11 Prosecutors Are in Plea Talks That Could Avert a Death-Penalty Trial

Source: New York Times

Sept. 11 Prosecutors Are in Plea Talks That Could Avert a Death-Penalty Trial

Pentagon prosecutors have struggled for more than a decade to hold the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his accused accomplices in the attacks.

By Carol Rosenberg and Charlie Savage
March 15, 2022
Updated 10:48 a.m. ET

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — Prosecutors have opened talks with lawyers for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and his four co-defendants to negotiate a potential plea agreement that would drop the possibility of execution, according to people with knowledge of the discussions.

Guilty pleas in exchange for life sentences could bring to an end the long-running case at the war court, which was set up by the George W. Bush administration and has been mired in pretrial proceedings focusing on the C.I.A.’s torture of the defendants. Nearly a decade after the men were arraigned, the military judge has set no trial start date.

No deal is expected soon. But guilty pleas resulting in life sentences could force the Biden administration to modify its ambition of ending detention operations at Guantánamo Bay and instead rebrand it as a military prison for a few men.

In an earlier, failed attempt at such talks during the Trump administration, the accused plotters demanded that they serve their sentences at Guantánamo, where they are able to pray and eat in groups. They specifically did not want to be sent to the supermax prison in Florence, Colo., where federal inmates are held in solitary confinement up to 23 hours a day.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/15/us/politics/gitmo-terrorism-trial.html