7 months ago
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Defense Department volition entreaty a subject judge's ruling that plea agreements struck by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and 2 of his co-defendants are valid, a defence authoritative said Saturday.
The ruling this past week voided Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's bid to propulsion retired the deals and concluded that the plea agreements were valid. The justice granted the 3 motions to participate blameworthy pleas and said helium would docket them for a aboriginal day to beryllium determined by the subject commission.
The section volition besides question a postponement of immoderate proceeding connected the pleas, according to the official, who was not authorized to publically sermon ineligible matters and spoke connected information of anonymity. Rear Adm. Aaron Rugh, the main prosecutor, sent a missive Friday to the families of 9/11 victims informing them of the decision.
The ruling by the judge, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, allowed the 3 9/11 defendants to participate blameworthy pleas successful the U.S. subject courtroom astatine Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and would spare them the hazard of the decease penalty. The pleas by Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi would beryllium a cardinal measurement toward closing retired the long-running and legally troubled authorities prosecution successful the attacks that killed astir 3,000 people.
Government prosecutors had negotiated the deals with defence lawyers nether authorities auspices, and the apical authoritative for the subject committee astatine Guantanamo had approved the agreements. But the deals were instantly slammed by Republican lawmakers and others erstwhile they were made nationalist this summer.
Within days, Austin issued an bid saying helium was nullifying them. He said plea bargains successful imaginable decease punishment cases tied to 1 of the gravest crimes ever carried retired connected U.S. ungraded were a momentous measurement that should lone beryllium decided by the defence secretary.
The justice had ruled that Austin lacked the ineligible authorization to flip retired the plea deals.
The agreements, and Austin’s effort to reverse them, person made for 1 of the astir fraught episodes successful a U.S. prosecution marked by delays and ineligible difficulties. That includes years of ongoing pretrial hearings to find the admissibility of statements by the defendants, fixed their torture successful CIA custody.
While families of immoderate of the victims and others are adamant that the 9/11 prosecutions proceed until proceedings and imaginable decease sentences, ineligible experts accidental it is not wide that could ever happen. If the 9/11 cases ever wide the hurdles of trial, verdicts and sentencings, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit would apt perceive galore of the issues successful the people of immoderate decease punishment appeals.
The issues see the CIA demolition of videos of interrogations, whether Austin’s plea woody reversal constituted unlawful interference and whether the torture of the men tainted consequent interrogations by “clean teams” of FBI agents that did not impact violence.
