Biden denies plea deal terms from 9/11 defendants.
The Biden Administration Rejects 9/11 Defendants’ Plea Deal Conditions
The Joe Biden administration has rejected the conditions proposed by the 9/11 defendants in exchange for guilty pleas, deeming the deal inappropriate. The defendants had requested an end to their solitary confinement and access to medical care for alleged abuses suffered at the hands of the CIA.
The President concurred with the Secretary of Defense’s recommendation to decline the Joint Policy Principles proposed by the defendants as a basis for plea negotiations. In response, a spokesperson for the National Security Council stated, “The 9/11 attacks were the single worst assault on the United States since Pearl Harbor. The President does not believe that accepting the joint policy principles as a basis for a pretrial agreement would be appropriate in these circumstances.”
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The spokesperson emphasized that the administration is committed to ensuring a fair military commissions process that delivers justice to all parties involved. The rejected plea deal would have allowed the 9/11 suspects to plead guilty while serving life sentences instead of facing the death penalty.
After negotiating for over a year and a half, lawyers on both sides must now work on a new plea bargain in the absence of President Biden’s acceptance. The case, which has been in the pretrial stage for more than two decades, has faced delays due to questions surrounding the admissibility of the suspects’ statements, stemming from alleged torture by the CIA during their initial custody.
Hearings on the case are set to resume on September 18, a week after the 22nd anniversary of the attack. In August, the Biden administration’s consideration of plea agreements that could spare the defendants from the death penalty drew disappointment from some families of the victims. They expressed their opposition in letters to President Biden, urging him not to proceed with the plea deal.
Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Nicole Malliotakis also voiced their opposition to the plea deal, advocating for the death penalty. Senator Cruz commended the Biden administration’s decision to reject the deal, stating, “Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other plotters who planned the 9/11 attacks are mass murderers who deserve the death penalty. That would have been outrageous.”
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