Why the plea agreement from three 9/11 terrorists is laudable

Almost 23 years after terrorists, inspired by badly deformed religious ideas, murdered nearly 3,000 people in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., three of the people who planned or in some central way participated in the operation have said yes to a plea agreement that will spare them the death penalty.

The three are: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind under the direction of the late Osama bin Laden, plus Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi. (Here, by the way, is a more complete story about the agreement from Lawdragon.com.)

I say thank God -- for two results: First, if this agreement is finalized, it will give 9/11 families like mine the opportunity to hear from the terrorists their explanations of the role they played in this international catastrophe and why they participated in it. Second, I'm grateful that the agreement will not add capital punishment to the sordid history of U.S. officials torturing the terrorists while they were in custody.

The families (like mine) whose members were murdered on 9/11 have worked hard to come to this incomplete resolution through such groups as the September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows and others. There's relief but also renewed pain at the loss of such people as my nephew.

Aaron Rugh, chief prosecutor on this case, said this in a letter yesterday to 9/11 families:

"In March 2022, this office notified you that it had entered into negotiations with the defense counsel in this case regarding possible pre-trial agreements. As we entered into these negotiations, members of the Prosecution team and the Director of VWAP (Victim Witness Assistance Program) sent you a letter, and then later met with groups of you in several locations, to discuss the possibility of pre-trial agreements in the case and answer any questions you may have had.

"The Prosecution did so to also solicit your various views and comments on the pre-trial agreements as Victim Family Members (VFMs) of the September 11 attacks, as required by law and regulation. The VFM comments you provided were then communicated by our office to the Convening Authority, the United States Government official empowered by the Secretary of Defense with authority to, among other things, enter into pre-trial agreements on behalf of the United States government. These negotiations have been on-going for the past 27 months, and this letter is sent to inform you that the negotiations have reached resolution with three of the Accused agreeing to plead guilty in this case.

"During the July/August 2024 session of the Commission, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa al Hawsawi entered into pre-trial agreements in this case with the Convening Authority. In exchange for the removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three Accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet, and to be later sentenced by a panel of military officers. As part of the pre-trial agreement, the Accused have also agreed to a process to respond to questions submitted by VFMs regarding their roles and reasons for conducting the September 11 attacks, should you have any unanswered questions about the attacks you would like answered."

The agreement leaves two other key prisoners at Guantanamo out of the agreement. So far it's not clear what will happen to them. However, in a Zoom call that I was part of last evening set up by the September Eleventh Families group, we learned that one of the two remaining central prisoners continues to negotiate for a separate plea deal while the other is injured physically and mentally to the point that it's unlikely he'll ever be able to consent to an agreement of any kind.

Three attorneys who have played a part in the negotiations that led to this agreement joined our Zoom call last night and generally expressed confidence that, in the end, it will be approved by authorities as well as by the prisoners and go into effect, though they acknowledge that the cases against all the prisoners held at Guantanamo have been complicated, lengthy and unpredictable for many reasons, including a few good ones. So it's too early to think that the cases against these three men have been settled for good.

Every time there is some kind of news story that relates to the 2001 terrorist attacks, of course, the families of those who perished are forced to relive the horrors of the day and to feel the excruciating pain of loss again. Which makes this long, long process seem unconscionable in the way it has battered families.

Still, there were brief words of congratulations on last evening's Zoom call, but no serious celebrating, even though the families organization has worked hard to make sure any plea agreement would allow families to ask hard questions of the terrorists so they can better understand why they engaged in this murderous madness. And that ability is part of the agreement.

If I could ask the three men any single question, it would be the one I raised in my book (I gave you a link to it above with the words "my nephew") about the murder of Karleton D. B. Fyfe: "What made you think that such a cruel act of ghastly destruction against people you didn't even know could be sanctioned by the religion you claimed to follow, Islam?" My hope is that, by now, they would confess that they were horribly wrong and acknowledge that Islam would never sanction such an act.

Until we've had a chance to ask such questions, however, we'll have to continue waiting -- but today I wait with a little more hope than what I had when yesterday began.

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