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President Joe Biden on Thursday rejected proposed terms of a plea deal for five detainees at Guantanamo Bay who are accused of assisting in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, a spokesman for the National Security Council said. White House.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, two hijacked passenger planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, marking the start of a series of coordinated attacks that day against the United States by the terrorist group. based in Afghanistan. al Qaeda group. Nearly 3,000 people died that day and thousands more were injured.
The defendants had filed a series of lawsuits as the basis for plea negotiations, known as “joint policy principles”.
The proposed plea deal would have caused all five defendants to plead guilty to war crimes. They would have received life sentences and avoid the death penalty.
According to The New York Times, those demands include avoiding solitary confinement and receiving medical treatment for injuries detainees say were the result of CIA interrogation methods.
Biden agreed with the recommendation of the US Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, to do not accept these demandsaccording to NBC News.
“The 9/11 attacks were the worst attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor,” the National Security Council spokesman said in a statement sent to various media on Wednesday. “The President does not believe that accepting the principles of joint policy as the basis for a pretrial settlement is appropriate in these circumstances. The Administration is committed to ensuring that the military commission process is fair and brings justice to victims, survivors, families, and those accused of crimes.”
The five detainees, including the alleged mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, They were transferred to the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2006. Their case has been stalled by legal proceedings for years, with no date set for trial.
An attorney representing one of the detainees told ABC News on Wednesday that they cannot share the full list of joint policy principles rejected by the Biden administration, but said that the list focused on improvements in long-term conditions of confinement to include comprehensive torture rehabilitation.
Ultimately, it will not be the president’s decision to determine if there is a pretrial agreement or what an appropriate sentence would be.
Rather, it falls under the Office of the Convening Authority of the Office of Military Commissions, a branch of the US Department of Defense that handles cases in military courts.
The Office of the Chief Prosecutor for Military Commissions sent a letter, dated August 1, to families who lost loved ones in the 2001 attacks, notifying them that a plea deal was being considered that could eliminate the death penalty, according to ABC News.
When asked for comment on the plea agreement, Military Commissions Office spokesman LCDR Adam Cole told ABC News in a statement last month: “The letter outlined the possible outcomes of what a possible plea agreement, including the possibility of eliminating the death penalty. Negotiations for a fair and equitable conclusion to this case are ongoing and have not been concluded.”
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