Joe Biden has defeated efforts by his own Secretary of Defense to stop plea deals made with the terrorists who planned the 9/11 attacks which killed nearly 3,000 people.
We now learn that the plea deals were to spare Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi the death penalty. And a military appeals court just put the plea deals back in motion:
CTV NEWS – A military appeals court has ruled against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s effort to throw out the plea deals reached for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants in the 9/11 attacks, a U.S. official said.
The decision puts back on track the agreements that would have the three men plead guilty to one of the deadliest attacks on the United States in exchange for being spared the possibility of the death penalty. The attacks by al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, and helped spur U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in what the George W. Bush administration called its war on terror.
The military appeals court released its ruling Monday night, according to the U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Military prosecutors and defence attorneys for Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks, and two co-defendants reached the plea agreements after two years of government-approved negotiations. The deals were announced late last summer.
Defence lawyers said Austin had no legal authority to reject a decision already approved by the Guantanamo court’s top authority and said the move amounted to unlawful interference in the case.
The military judge hearing the 9/11 case, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, had agreed that Austin lacked standing to throw out the plea bargains after they were underway. That had set up the Defense Department’s appeal to the military appeals court.
Austin now has the option of taking his effort to throw out the plea deals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
It’s stunning to me that these men haven’t already been put to death for their 9/11 attack and unless Austin takes this to the DC court of appeals, they won’t get the death penalty. Joe Biden cleary wanted this given his pardons of death row inmates and I’m sure he’s happy he’s won the day here.
To quote Bonchie, “Truly the worst, most morally reprehensible president in modern history.”
