9/11 Defendant Agrees to Use Confession Against Death Penalty

The man accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, has agreed to allow prosecutors to use parts of a 2007 confession he says was obtained under torture in his trial. future punishment if his case is resolved through the courts. death sentence.

Defense lawyers have tried for years to exclude the confessions from the death penalty trial of Mr. Mohammed and three other men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. he is a kidnapper. in a secret CIA prison network where he was waterboarded, beaten and abused.

But parts of his plea agreement released by a federal court at the weekend show Mr Mohammed agreed that prosecutors could use parts of his confession in a sentencing hearing – if he is allowed to confess.

That deal is at the center of a political and legal controversy that has engulfed the Trump administration.

On July 31, after more than a decade of pursuit, a senior Pentagon appointee signed a separate deal with Mr. Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi to settle their capital case in exchange for their waiver of the right to appeal their conviction and challenge certain evidence. These agreements were submitted to military judges, under seal.

Then, two days later, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III moved to withdraw from the agreement. He revoked the authority he had appointed, Susan K. Escallier, a retired Army attorney, to reach the settlement and said he wanted the men to face trial.

Now the federal court has suspended their entry of the appeal while deciding whether Mr. Austin has the authority to violate the agreement and whether to return the case to a full court.

The court’s release of a few parts of the plea agreement comes at a significant time.

The trial at Guantánamo Bay in the case of Ammar al-Baluchi, the fourth accused in this case, is still ongoing. The military judge, Col. Matthew N. McCall, decided to decide whether to exclude Mr. Baluchi’s confession in the death penalty trial, because it was obtained under torture.

Mr. Baluchi’s case for the three men, who sought to plead guilty to avoid a death penalty trial, proceeded without a legal team.

There are examples of military commissions suppressing confessions. In August 2023, a judge threw out similar evidence in another capital case at Guantánamo, against a detainee accused of plotting to bomb the USS Cole in 2000. Prosecutors are calling for a retrial. his 2007 interrogation by the FBI.

In Washington, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has scheduled arguments for Jan. 28 on whether to move forward with the plea agreement of the other three defendants. Mr. Austin was represented by a Biden administration appointee at the Justice Department who will leave his post on Monday.

Attorneys at the Department of Labor Justice have now taken over the case and submitted the portion, in agreement with Mr. Mohammed, Mr. bin Attash and Mr. Hawsawi. Court documents also revealed that Mr. Bin Attash and Mr. Hawsawi also agreed to use parts of their 2007 confessions against them at trial, if the case goes forward. charges.

But the Trump administration has not announced how it will handle the plea deals. Colonel McCall, the judge, said that if the district court rules in favor of the appeal, he could hold a trial in February. If the deal is broken, defense attorneys will return to trying to block the confession at trial.

Like his accomplices, Mr. Baluchi spent more than three years with the CIA after being captured in Pakistan in 2003 and transferred to Guantánamo Bay in September 2006. Within months of his transfer there, the FBI was brought in to investigate the men. for use in their trial.

His lawyers argued that in those early months he had no reason to believe he could give his interrogators any answers other than those he had given the CIA over the years.

Lawyers for the four men also asked the judge to throw out transcripts of their appearance in early 2007 before a military officer’s office called a tribunal of review. warrior status. They say that these are also tainted by torture.

At Mr. Mohammed’s trial on March 10, 2007, an unnamed U.S. officer read aloud a statement he said Mr. Mohammed had given: “I am responsible for the 9/11 events, from A to Z.”

Part of the plea agreement shows that Mr. Mohammed also agreed to have parts of that transcript used against him at his trial.

Clayton G. Trivett Jr., the chief prosecutor who negotiated the deal, outlined a plan for a sentencing hearing that he said would begin later this year and could extend into 2026.

The sentencing will include a month-long presentation before the panel and the public “to outline the historical record of the defendants’ involvement in the events of September 11,” he said, as well as possible depositions. for hundreds of victims from survivors or relatives. those who were killed.