(Washington) Pakistani Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, considered the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks and held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo, has accepted a plea bargain, the Pentagon announced Wednesday.
This agreement allows Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to avoid a trial where he would face the death penalty, in exchange for a sentence of life imprisonment, the New York Times.
The agreement also covers two of the prisoner’s co-defendants, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, who have also been held for two decades at Guantanamo on the island of Cuba.
They are accused of terrorism and the murder of nearly 3,000 people in the attacks in New York and Washington.
The men were never tried, with proceedings to bring them to trial bogged down over whether the torture they suffered in secret CIA prisons tainted the evidence against them.
In March 2022, lawyers for the prisoners confirmed that negotiations were underway for a possible plea bargain, rather than a trial before the Guantanamo military tribunal.
The defendants wanted, in particular, a guarantee that they would remain at Guantanamo, rather than being transferred to a federal penitentiary on the American continent, in a solitary confinement cell.