Washington: The United States has reached plea agreements with three men held at Guantanamo Bay including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The Pentagon has not disclosed the full details of the agreements, but reports suggest that the men will plead guilty in exchange for life sentences instead of facing the death penalty.
The three men-Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi were scheduled to stand trial in a military court at the high-security facility, but their cases have been in legal delays for many years. The plea deals are seen as a crucial development in resolving the long-standing legal complications surrounding the attacks.
The September 11 attacks, carried out by the al-Qaeda group resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 people when hijackers crashed four planes into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. The attacks led to the US initiating the war on terror with military interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and ongoing counterterrorism operations across the Middle East.
The men involved in the plea deals could appear in court as soon as next week to formalise their pleas. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, once a key lieutenant of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and held in secret CIA prisons. Walid bin Attash, a Saudi national of Yemeni descent, allegedly trained two of the 9/11 hijackers and was also involved in the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Mustafa al-Hawsawi, accused of financing the 9/11 attacks, was arrested in Pakistan in 2003 and similarly held in secret prisons before his transfer to Guantanamo.
The military commissions at Guantanamo were established by former President George W Bush in 2001 to prosecute people accused of organising the September 11 and other attacks outside the bounds of US criminal law.
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