Washington On Tuesday, the Biden administration requested that a federal appeals court halt a plea deal that would have spared alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants from facing the death penalty.
In a brief submitted to a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia, the Justice Department contended that accepting the guilty pleas would do irreversible harm to the government. It stated that the government would not be allowed to try three individuals for a mass murder that shocked the country and the globe and killed thousands of people, nor would it be allowed to seek the death penalty.
After the top Pentagon official for Guantanamo authorized the plea deal in July, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attempted to have it revoked, but the military judge at Guantanamo Bay and a military appeals tribunal denied him the authority to do so. Mohammed and his two co-defendants were scheduled to submit guilty pleas on Friday and next week, respectively.
According to the Justice Department brief, the defendants would not be negatively impacted by a slight delay because the plea deals would probably result in them spending lengthy prison terms, possibly for the remainder of their lives, and the prosecution has been going on since 2012.
The government contended that the respondents would not suffer any meaningful injury from a brief delay that would allow this Court to consider the merits of the government’s request in this significant case.
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