2 yıl önce

Attorneys: US holding plea talks with 9/11 attack defendants

Five defendants of September 11 attacks, held at US prison in Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, are in talks "over proposed dispositions of the case," their lawyers say; and separately, US invites UN to visit the controversial naval prison.

Reuters

[File photo] The five have been embroiled in pretrial hearings for a decade and have undergone methodical torture at the hands of the CIA in the years after the 9/11 attacks.

Five men charged in the September 11, 2001 attacks, including alleged "mastermind" Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, are in plea negotiations to resolve the longstanding capital case, defence attorneys have confirmed.

Lawyers for the five, each held for more than 15 years at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have entered into talks with prosecutors in the high-security military court "over proposed dispositions of the case," attorneys for one defendant, Ammar al Baluchi, said on Tuesday.

"I can confirm that plea negotiations are ongoing and that the scheduled hearing this month was cancelled for that reason," said one of those attorneys, Alka Pradhan.

"Negotiated agreements represent one path to ending military commissions, stopping indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, and providing justice," she said.

The five have been embroiled in pretrial hearings for a decade, much of the jousting focused on whether they can be tried fairly after having undergone methodical torture at the hands of the CIA in the years after the 9/11 attacks.

Families seek execution

After an 18-month delay because of the Covid 19 pandemic, late last year prosecutors said they hoped to open the formal trial this year.

But others in Guantanamo expressed doubts at that, and the move to discuss a plea deal could reflect the lack of a clear horizon for starting and completing a formal trial.

Last year some followers of the case said that the defendants could conceivably agree to plead guilty if the death penalty was taken off the table and, after sentencing, they remain imprisoned in Guantanamo rather than be transferred to a "supermax" penitentiary inside the United States.

But families of the nearly 3,000 people who died on September 11th have strongly supported having the men executed, and the issue remains deeply emotional, as well as politically charged.

The five include Mohammed, who has admitted being deeply involved in planning and executing the plot; al Baluchi, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al Shibh and Mustafa alHawsawi.

UN gets US invitation to inspect Guantanamo

Meanwhile, a UN expert told the world's top rights body on Tuesday that she had received a preliminary invitation from Washington to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in what could lead to the first-ever visit by one of the body's special rapporteurs.

UN independent experts and Washington have been discussing a possible visit to the controversial site for nearly 20 years but this overture may be the best chance yet of a trip to probe alleged rights violations, given a commitment by President Joe Biden to review the controversial facility.

"I am pleased to report to this council session that the US government has extended a preliminary invitation...to engage in a technical visit to the US naval station in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba," Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the special rapporteur on human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism told the Geneva-based Human Rights Council.

"This is a positive step forward," she added.

The US State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

US 'war on terror'

Washington returned to the council this year as a voting member after a period of absence under former president Donald Trump.

A "preliminary" invitation means that the two parties still need to agree to the terms of a visit. On the side of the UN special rapporteur, this means ensuring her work can be carried out unimpeded and independently.

Set up for foreign suspects after September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, the prison came to symbolise the excesses of the US "war on terror" because of interrogation methods that critics say amounted to torture.

Ni Aolain released a report to the council on Tuesday on secret detentions in which she repeated a call to close the site, which she said still has at least 38 male Muslim detainees.

SOURCE: TRTWorld and agencies