U.S. strikes plea deal with 9/11 mastermind

The terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who conceived of and plotted the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has entered a pretrial plea agreement with U.S. military prosecutors. The Department of Defense did not disclose details of the agreement, but Mohammed’s attorneys previously requested that he be allowed to plead guilty and receive a sentence of life in prison instead of the death penalty. Two other co-defendants,  Walid Bin 'Attash and Mustafa al Hawsawi, also made deals, according to the Defense Department.

U.S. Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., called the news “a slap in the face to every family that lost a loved one on 9/11 and since.” Echoing similar sentiments from other New York Republicans and some families of 9/11 victims, Lawler wrote on X that “these terrorist scumbags must face the full weight of justice.” 

Where has Mohammed been all this time? In 2003, Mohammed was captured in Pakistan by the CIA and Pakistani intelligence. The CIA later reported to Congress that its agents interrogated Mohammed using techniques such as waterboarding. He confessed to plotting not only the 9/11 attacks but also the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center in New York City, the 2002 killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, and other terror attacks. He was transferred from CIA custody to the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2008, and faced trial by a military commission. Under former President Barack Obama, the Justice Department at one time planned to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison, but Congress passed a law to prevent it.

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Emily Belz’s report on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.