Three men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US have entered into a pre-trial agreement, according to the Department of Defense.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi have been held at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for years without trial.
While the details of the deal have not been disclosed, US news outlets report that the men will plead guilty in exchange for the prosecution not seeking the death penalty.
The attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania, led to the “War on Terror” and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. They were the deadliest assault on US soil since the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, which killed 2,400 people.
The plea deal was first revealed in a letter from prosecutors to the families of victims, according to The New York Times. It indicated that the plea before a military court could occur as early as next week.
In its announcement, the US Department of Defense stated, “the specific terms and conditions of the pretrial agreements are not available to the public at this time.”
The men face numerous charges, including attacking civilians, murder in violation of the laws of war, hijacking, and terrorism.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is widely regarded as the architect of the attacks, in which hijackers seized passenger planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside Washington. A fourth plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back.
Mohammed, a US-educated engineer, was captured along with Hawsawi in Pakistan in March 2003.
Prosecutors argued that he brought his idea of hijacking and flying planes into US buildings to al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, and later helped recruit and train some of the hijackers.
He was subjected to numerous “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning, at least 183 times before the practice was banned by the US government.
The trial has been delayed for years partly due to concerns that the harsh interrogation techniques, which critics argue amounted to torture, could undermine the evidence against the detainees.
In September, the Biden administration reportedly rejected the terms of a plea deal with five men held at the US Navy base in Cuba, including Mohammed. The men had sought assurances that they would not be kept in solitary confinement and would have access to trauma treatment.
The White House National Security Council stated that the president’s office was informed of the new deal on Wednesday and had not played a role in the negotiations.
Jim Smith, whose wife died in the attacks, told the New York Post that the families of victims have “waited 23 years to have our day in court to put on the record what these animals did to our loved ones.”
“They took that opportunity away from us,” he said, adding they should receive the “highest penalty” for their roles.
Republicans, too, were quick to attack the Biden administration for striking a deal with the accused.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell condemned the move as “a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice”.
“The only thing worse than negotiating with terrorists is negotiating with them after they are in custody,” he said.
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