World
Divided US appeals court rejects plea deal for accused September 11 attacks mastermind
A U.S. appeals court on Friday refused to allow Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks, and two of his co-defendants to plead guilty under agreements that would have spared them the death penalty.
The ruling by a 2-1 panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upended an attempt to bring an end to a military prosecution of the three detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that has been beset by two decades of legal gridlock.
Those plea agreements had been offered last year and accepted by the official who oversees the Pentagon’s Guantanamo war court, only to be revoked in August by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after Republican lawmakers attacked the agreements.
A military judge, though, ruled that Austin lacked authority to revoke the plea deals in a decision that was upheld in December by U.S. Court of Military Commission Review. The judge then scheduled prompt plea hearings.
The D.C. Circuit at the behest of former Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration agreed to pause those proceedings while it heard the government’s legal challenge, which Republican President Donald Trump’s administration continued.
U.S. Circuit Judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao, writing for the majority, in Friday’s ruling said Austin “indisputably had legal authority to withdraw from the agreements.”
“Having properly assumed the convening authority, the Secretary determined that the ‘families and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out,” the judges wrote. “The secretary acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment.”
Millett was appointed by Democratic President Barack Obama, while Rao is a Trump appointee. U.S. Circuit Judge Robert Wilkins, an Obama appointee, dissented from what he called a “stunning” ruling, saying his colleagues should have deferred to the decisions of military courts interpreting military rules.
A lawyer for Mohammed and one of his co-defendants, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, did not respond to requests for comment, nor did the Pentagon.
Matthew Engle, an attorney for the third defendant, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak bin ‘Atash, said he was considering a potential further appeal, including to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Mohammed is the most well-known inmate at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, which was set up in 2002 by then-U.S. President George W. Bush to house foreign militant suspects following the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Mohammed is accused of masterminding the plot to fly hijacked commercial passenger aircraft into the World Trade Center in New York City and into the Pentagon. The 9/11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people.
World
Death toll from migrant rush into Spanish enclave in North Africa rises to 72
Authorities have reinforced police and army patrols. A 500-metre (1,600-foot) floating barrier was installed off Ceuta on Saturday.
The death toll from a mass rush of migrants from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta last week reached at least 72 on Sunday, as five more bodies were found along the North African coast, officials said, Reuters reported.
The number of fatalities was considerably higher than what was announced by Moroccan authorities on Sunday.
More than 50,000 people crossed into Ceuta by land and sea in an unprecedented surge that began on Thursday at one of the European Union’s only two land borders with Africa, prompting alarm across the bloc. More than 48,000 returned to Morocco within 48 hours and more did so over the weekend, Spanish authorities said.
The Spanish government representative in Ceuta, Miguel Angel Perez, told reporters on Sunday that, in addition to the 72 fatalities, more than 1,000 people had been treated by health services. The situation in the enclave had improved markedly, he said, but more remained to be done to re-establish normality.
Some migrants drowned and others were crushed while trying to climb a breakwater and border fence. Many had been driven to migrate by economic hardship and encouraged by social media rumours.
Morocco’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on Sunday that 11 people had died, mostly by drowning while trying to cross into Spanish territory, noting that it was fact-checking reports on deaths from the other side of the border, read the report.
The ministry blamed the rush of migrants on social media misinformation, human trafficking networks and misinterpretation of a Spanish ruling banning immediate returns of migrants intercepted at sea. That statement is similar to the Spanish Foreign Ministry’s comments on the matter.
Moroccan authorities set the number of those involved in the crossing at 40,000, far lower than the figure used by Spanish officials, adding that 1,135 were stopped from entering Melilla, another Spanish enclave.
The statement reiterated that Morocco was committed to countering illegal migration and called for the burden of managing migration to be shared.
“It pains me deeply that young people are dying at sea. It’s not right that, in the year 2026, women with children as young as two months old should be crossing the sea only to die,” Karima Abenaz, a French national in Ceuta with family in Morocco, said while holding back tears.
“In Morocco, there’s food, there’s everything we need,” she added. “If we don’t have a decent job, we should go on strike and demand our rights from the government. We shouldn’t be dying at sea, it’s not right.”
Ceuta leader Juan Jesus Vivas told the newspaper El Pais the city’s morgue had received 88 corpses, including some who had died in earlier, smaller attempts to reach the territory in hazardous night-time swims over the past two weeks. He said Moroccan authorities were also recovering bodies from the sea, but no official information was available.
Authorities have reinforced police and army patrols. A 500-metre (1,600-foot) floating barrier was installed off Ceuta on Saturday.
Twenty-two European Union member states wrote a letter asking for coordinated action to protect external borders and other measures after the Ceuta incident. Italy suspended passport-free Schengen travel arrangements with Spain for one month, Reuters reported.
Spain has adopted a more open stance on migrants than most other EU countries, introducing a programme to grant residency to more than half a million undocumented people.
It has rejected suggestions that the scheme encouraged the rush into Ceuta, saying that those who entered the enclave irregularly could not travel on to mainland Spain or elsewhere in the Schengen zone.
World
Three killed, two injured in shooting at Idaho shopping center
Authorities said at least two other people were wounded and transported for medical treatment. Their conditions were not immediately released.
Three people, including the suspected gunman, were killed and at least two others were injured after a shooting at a busy shopping area in Twin Falls, Idaho, on Saturday, local authorities said.
The incident occurred at around 2:30 p.m. local time near an In-N-Out Burger restaurant in a high-traffic commercial district, according to Josh Palmer, the city’s public information coordinator.
Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said the suspected shooter was among the dead and confirmed that the threat to the community had been eliminated.
“At this point, the shooter is no longer a threat,” Hicks told reporters, adding that investigators are working to identify the suspect and determine a motive for the attack.
Authorities said at least two other people were wounded and transported for medical treatment. Their conditions were not immediately released.
Following the shooting, the Twin Falls Police Department temporarily closed roads surrounding the scene, including a nearby bridge, as officers secured the area and launched an investigation.
Twin Falls, with a population of about 47,400, is located in Idaho’s Magic Valley region.
Police have not yet released additional details about the victims or the circumstances surrounding the shooting, and the investigation remains ongoing.
World
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