The Biden administration succeeds in temporarily blocking a plea deal for accused 9/11 mastermind
Source: AP
Updated 8:17 PM EST, January 9, 2025
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration succeeded Thursday in temporarily blocking accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from entering a guilty plea in a deal that would spare him the risk of execution for al-Qaida’s Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
It is the latest development in a long struggle by the U.S. military and successive administrations to bring to justice the man charged with planning one of the deadliest attacks ever on the United States. It stalls an attempt to wrap up more than two decades of military prosecution beset by legal and logistical troubles.
A three-judge appeals panel agreed to put on hold Mohammed’s guilty plea scheduled for Friday in a military commission courtroom at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In an unusual move, the Biden administration is pushing to throw out a plea agreement that its own Defense Department had negotiated with Mohammed and two 9/11 co-defendants.
Mohammed is accused of developing and directing the plot to crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Another of the hijacked planes flew into a field in Pennsylvania.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/911-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-plea-guantanamo-austin-02fc64818a46a4bed14742bffa80db3c