2 a long time later, 9/11 self-professed mastermind awaits trial

Hours earlier than daybreak on March 1, 2003, the US scored its most thrilling victory but towards the plotters of the Sept 11 assaults — the seize of a raveled Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, hauled away by intelligence brokers from a hideout in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

The world manhunt for al-Qaida’s No 3 chief had taken 18 months. But America’s try and convey him to justice, in a authorized sense, has taken a lot, for much longer. Critics say it has change into one of many struggle on terror’s best failures.

As Sunday’s twenty first anniversary of the phobia assaults approaches, Mohammed and 4 different males accused of 9/11-related crimes nonetheless sit in a US detention middle in Guantanamo Bay, their deliberate trials earlier than a army tribunal endlessly postponed.

The newest setback got here final month when pretrial hearings scheduled for early fall have been cancelled. The delay was yet another in a string of disappointments for family of the practically 3,000 victims of the assault. They’ve lengthy hoped {that a} trial would convey closure and maybe resolve unanswered questions.

“Now, I’m not sure what’s going to happen,” stated Gordon Haberman, whose 25-year-old daughter Andrea died after a hijacked aircraft crashed into the the World Trade Center, a flooring above her workplace.

He’s travelled to Guantanamo 4 occasions from his house in West Bend, Wisconsin, to look at the authorized proceedings in particular person, solely to go away annoyed.

“It’s important to me that America finally gets to the truth about what happened, how it was done,” stated Haberman. “I personally want to see this go to trial.” If convicted at trial, Mohammed might face the loss of life penalty.

When requested concerning the case, James Connell, an lawyer for considered one of Mohammed’s co-defendants — one accused of transferring cash to 9/11 attackers — confirmed studies each side are nonetheless “attempting to reach a pretrial agreement” that might nonetheless keep away from a trial and end in lesser however nonetheless prolonged sentences.

David Kelley, a former U.S. lawyer in New York who co-chaired the Justice Department’s nationwide investigation into the assaults, known as the delays and failure to prosecute “an awful tragedy for the families of the victims.” He known as the trouble to place Mohammed on trial earlier than a army tribunal, slightly than within the common U.S. courtroom system,
“a tremendous failure” that was “as offensive to our Constitution as to our rule of law.” “It’s a tremendous blemish on the country’s history,” he stated.

The problem in holding a trial for Mohammed and different Guantanamo prisoners is partly rooted in what the U.S. did with him after his 2003 seize.

Mohammed and his co-defendants have been initially held in secret prisons overseas. Hungry for data that may lead
to the seize of different al-Qaida figures, CIA operatives subjected them to enhanced interrogation strategies that have been tantamount to torture, human rights teams say. Mohammed was waterboarded — made to really feel that he was drowning — 183 occasions.

A Senate investigation later concluded the interrogations didn’t result in any useful intelligence. But it has sparked countless pretrial litigation over whether or not FBI studies on their statements can be utilized towards them — a course of not topic to speedy trial guidelines utilized in civilian courts.

The torture allegations led to considerations that the U.S. might need ruined its likelihood to place Mohammed on trial in a civilian courtroom.

But in 2009, President Barack Obama’s administration determined to attempt, saying that Mohammed could be transferred to New York City and placed on trial at a federal courtroom in Manhattan.

“Failure is not an option,” Obama stated.

But New York City balked at the price of safety and the transfer by no means got here. Eventually, it was introduced Mohammed would face a army tribunal. And then over a dozen years handed.

Kelley stated discuss of army tribunals 20 years in the past shocked many within the authorized group who had been efficiently prosecuting terrorism instances within the decade earlier than. The idea of a tribunal, he stated, “came out of the blue. Nobody knew it was coming.” Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was not in favor of tribunals and had been supportive of the Manhattan federal terrorism prosecutions, he stated.

Now, Kelley stated, with the passage of time will probably be way more troublesome to prosecute Mohammed in a tribunal, a lot much less a courtroom. “Evidence goes stale, witness memories fail.” The passage of time hasn’t dulled the recollections of the victims’ households or dampened their curiosity in witnessing justice.

Eddie Bracken’s sister Lucy Fishman was killed on the commerce middle. The New Yorker opposed Obama’s proposal to maneuver the trial to federal courtroom — Mohammed is charged with “a military act,” and needs to be tried by the army, he reasoned. And whereas he’s considerably annoyed by the delays, he understands them.

“The whole world is looking at us and saying, What are they doing after all this time?’” he stated. But he realizes the case is “a process that the world is seeing, that needs to be done under a microscope. … It’s up to the United States to do their due diligence, make sure it’s done right.” “The wheels of justice turn. They turn slowly, but they turn. And when the time comes, and it’s said and done, the world will know what happened,” he provides.

While Mohammed has lingered at Guantanamo, the U.S. killed al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid and deputy-turned-successor Ayman al-Zawahri in a drone strike simply this August.

Investigators with the army fee at Guantanamo Bay stated he plotted the 9/11 assaults for 3 years. They cited a pc arduous drive seized at his arrest which they stated contained images of the 19 hijackers, three letters from bin Laden and details about some hijackers.

Mohammed, at his tribunal listening to, conceded in a written assertion that he swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden, that he was on al-Qaida’s council and that he served as operational director for bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up and execution of the Sept. 11 plot “from A to Z.” According to the assertion, he additionally took credit score for the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center; an try and down U.S. jetliners utilizing bombs hidden in sneakers; the bombing of a nightclub in Indonesia; and plans for a second wave of assaults after the 2001 assaults concentrating on landmarks just like the Sears Tower in Chicago and Manhattan’s Empire State Building.

He additionally claimed credit score for different deliberate assaults, together with assassination makes an attempt towards then-President Bill Clinton in 1994 or 1995 and an assassination plot towards Pope John Paul II at about the identical time, the assertion
stated.

Mohammed’s practically 20 years in authorized limbo differs from the destiny of his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing that killed six folks, injured 1,000 others and left a crater within the parking storage beneath the dual towers.

Yousef is serving life in jail after being convicted at two separate civilian trials. He was additionally captured in Pakistan, in 1995, however was delivered to the United States for trial.

At the time, Yousef stated his proper to kill folks was corresponding to the U.S. resolution to drop a nuclear bomb in World
War II. Mohammed has provided an identical justification, saying via an interpreter at a Guantanamo continuing that killing folks was the “language of any war.” Bracken traveled to Guantanamo in 2012 to look at one listening to for Mohammed and his co-defendants, and would in all probability go once more if a trial ever occurred.

“I don’t know if I want to go there again to bring back all the hurt and pain. But if I’m allowed to go, then I guess I would go. Yeah. My sister would do that for me.” “She’s that type of a woman,” he added. Then he corrected himself:
“She was that type of a woman.”