US reaches plea agreement with men accused as main plotters of 9/11

Three men accused of plotting the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks have entered into a pre-trial agreement, the US Department of Defence said.

The three accused, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi have been held at the US Navy base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for years without going to trial.

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According to the US news agency reports, the men will plead guilty in exchange for the prosecution's agreement not to pursue the death penalty. The terms of the plea deal have not yet been released.

It may be recalled here that nearly 3,000 people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania were killed in the al-Qaeda attacks, which sparked the War on Terror and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The attacks were the deadliest on US soil since Pearl Harbor, which claimed 2,400 lives in 1941.

The prosecutors notified the victims' families of the plea deal in a letter, according to The New York Times.

"In exchange for the elimination of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offences, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet," said the letter from the chief prosecutor Rear Admiral Aaron Rugh.

The men have been accused of a litany of charges, including attacking civilians, murder in violation of the laws of war, hijacking and terrorism.

As per a report in Times, they are expected to formally submit their pleas in court as early as next week.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammadis believed to be the architect of the attack, in which hijackers seized passenger planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside of Washington.

Mohammad, who was an educated engineer from the US, was captured with Hawsawi in Pakistan in March 2003.

Prosecutors claimed he pitched the idea of hijacking planes to crash into US buildings to Osama bin Laden and later helped recruit and train the hijackers.

In September, the Biden administration reportedly rejected the terms of a plea.

The White House National Security Council said that the president's office was informed on Wednesday (Jul31) of the new deal and had played no role in negotiations.

However, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell condemned the move, he said, "The only thing worse than negotiating with terrorists is negotiating with them after they are in custody."

(With inputs from agencies)