Three 9/11 suspects agree to ‘plea deal’ to avoid death sentence

Three of the men accused of plotting the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US, including the so-called mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have entered into a pre-trial agreement, which could see the men plead guilty in exchange for the prosecution agreeing not to seek the death penalty, US media reported Thursday.

The three men, Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi, have been held at the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for years without going to trial.
While details of the deal have not been announced, one US official told Reuters on condition of anonymity that the deal almost certainly involved guilty pleas.

The official said the terms of the agreement had not been publicly disclosed but acknowledged a plea for a life sentence was possible.

Mohammed is the most well known inmate at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, which was set up in 2002 by then-US President George W. Bush to house foreign militant suspects following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

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, as they’re known, killed nearly 3,000 people and plunged the United States into what would become a two-decade-long war in Afghanistan.