On September 11, 2001, the United States experienced the deadliest terrorist attack in its history. Several suspects are in US custody. Why are they still not being tried after 22 years?
It is the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the USA. 3,000 people lost their lives after Islamists hijacked several planes and crashed them into public buildings as flying bombs. To the New York World Trade Center, but also to the Pentagon in Washington.
The mastermind of 9/11, Al Qaeda boss Osama bin Laden, is now dead. But at least five other terrorist suspects who are said to have been involved in September 11th remain in US custody in the Guantánamo Bay prison camp.
Even 22 years after the attacks of September 11th, people remember the victims at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum at Ground Zero in Lower Manhattan.
No trial for covering up torture?
US President Joe Biden has now been in office for more than two and a half years. But one of his more symbolic campaign promises, the closure of the highly controversial Guantánamo Bay prison camp in Cuba, has remained unfulfilled. The main obstacle: Five of the 30 inmates are accused of the September 11th terror. Including mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who, along with Osama bin Laden, is considered the mastermind of the attacks.
Congress has prevented the five from being transferred to a prison on American soil. Daphne Eviatar from Amnesty International reminds us what is likely to be the main obstacle to starting a trial.
Part of the explanation is that many of these men were tortured by the CIA and probably the US military too!
Eviatar assumes that the US wants to avoid the torture practices becoming public during the court proceedings. In any case, confessions obtained under torture cannot be used in court.
US considers plea deal with defendants
That’s why there has been a struggle for a so-called “plea deal” in the case of the five terror suspects for years. In the US legal system, this refers to concessions made to suspects under the condition of an admission of guilt. Specifically: No death penalty for the five terrorist suspects if they admit their involvement in the September 11th attacks. That would be a legal basis for holding them accountable. What sounds consistent has so far failed due to the resistance of the survivors.
Debra Burlingame lost her brother on September 11th: Charles Burlingame was one of the pilots of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon in Washington. Like many survivors, Debra fears in an interview with the US television station CBS: “I won’t be able to come to terms with this as long as there is a possibility that the perpetrators will get away with a prison sentence, then be pardoned by a future president and released! “
In other words, Debra Burlingame is demanding the death penalty for her brother’s murderers. Aware of this sentiment, the Biden government rejected several conditions of the proposed “plea deal” just a few days ago. According to a report in the New York Times newspaper, the defendants are said to have demanded, among other things, not to have to serve their life sentence in solitary confinement and to be allowed to eat and pray with other prisoners.
The White House confirmed that Biden does not accept these conditions as a basis for negotiations. In a statement it said: “The attacks of September 11th were the worst attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor.” The President believes that agreeing to the “plea deal” under these circumstances is “not appropriate.”
survivors-Initiative: “The state acted illegally”
Because the idle waiting continues, another survivors’ initiative is now putting pressure on them through their lawyers. “At least the five terror suspects and the US government are still negotiating,” emphasizes lawyer James Connell on CBS, “so there is still hope that an end will be in sight at some point.”
Alka Pradhan, also on CBS, argues that the US government has brought upon itself the fact that an advance waiver of the harshest punishment might be necessary: ”The US government left us all hanging after September 11th,” she complains Attorney, “the state acted illegally.” And that is now taking its toll because it is permanently paralyzing the legal processing of September 11th. On the 22nd anniversary, it is apparently still too early to make any unpleasant concessions that would bring movement into the matter.