Remains on death row

US court prevents deal with 9/11 mastermind

A white rose adorns the 9/11 memorial.(Bild: AFP/SPENCER PLATT/Getty Images)

An appeals court in Washington has stopped a judicial deal with the alleged chief planner of the 9/11 attacks and other co-defendants. He apparently wants to plead guilty in order to avoid the death penalty. However, there is great political resistance to this.

At the request of US President Joe Biden's government, the court imposed a temporary "administrative stay", i.e. a provisional suspension of the proceedings. This pauses all steps in connection with the planned agreement until a final decision has been made.

The Department of Defense had argued in its application to the appeals court that "the damage to the US government and the public would be irreparable" if the court were to allow the settlement. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had already tried to block it in the summer, but a military court declared his move invalid. As a result, the agreement between the defendants and the judiciary came back into force.

Worst terrorist attack in US history
On September 11, 2001, around 3,000 people were killed in the worst terrorist attack in the United States to date. Islamist terrorists flew three hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington. A fourth plane crashed in the US state of Pennsylvania.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been imprisoned for years in the notorious US prison camp Guantánamo in Cuba, is considered the main planner of the attacks. He is said to have organized both the financing and the communication for the operation.

Together with two co-defendants, he is seeking an agreement with the judiciary, a so-called plea deal, in which he intends to plead guilty. The exact details of the agreement have not yet been made public. According to US media, however, they will be spared the death penalty as part of the agreement. Austin had initially supported the agreement, but withdrew his consent after heavy criticism.

Guantánamo highly controversial
The outgoing US government recently released eleven more prisoners from the Guantánamo prison camp and transferred them to Oman. The detainees released were men from Yemen. The prison camp is located on Cuba at the US naval base Guantánamo Bay. At times, almost 800 people were detained there.

The camp was set up after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 in the USA under President George W. Bush to detain suspected Islamist terrorists without trial. Human rights groups have long been calling for it to be closed.