Biden administration asks court to block plea deal for alleged mastermind of 9/11 attacks

Biden administration seeks to block plea deal sparing 9/11 mastermind from death penalty, citing national importance.

The Biden administration asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday (January 8, 2025) to block a plea agreement for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that would spare him the risk of the death penalty in one of the deadliest attacks ever on the United States.

The Justice Department argued in a brief filed with a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia that the government would be irreparably harmed if the guilty pleas were accepted for Mohammed and two co-defendants in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

It said the government would be denied a chance for a public trial and the opportunity to “seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world.”

The Defense Department negotiated the plea deal but later repudiated it. Attorneys for the defendants argue it was legally negotiated and should stand.

Tuesday's appeal comes as family members of some the nearly 3,000 people killed in the al-Qaida attacks already were gathered at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hear Mohammed's scheduled guilty plea Friday. The other two men, accused of lesser roles in 9/11, were due to enter them next week.

Family members have been split on the deal, with some calling it the best resolution possible for a prosecution mired for more than a decade in pretrial hearings and legal and logistical difficulties. Others demanded a trial and — they hoped — execution.

Some legal experts have warned that the legal challenges posed by the case, including the men’s torture under CIA custody after their capture, could keep the aging detainees from ever facing verdicts and any possible sentences.