Prosecutors and defense lawyers are still negotiating toward a plea agreement for the men accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks despite the Biden administration’s refusal to endorse certain proposed conditions, the lead prosecutor said in court on Wednesday at Guantánamo Bay.
“This is all whirling around us,” said Clayton G. Trivett Jr., the prosecutor, discussing key details of the negotiations in open court for the first time.
He added that “around the edges we have agreed to do things” and that “the positions that we took at the time are still available.”In mostly secret negotiations in 2022 and 2003, prosecutors offered to drop the death penalty from the case in exchange for detailed admissions by the accused architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and four other men who are charged as his accomplices in the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Since then, one of the five men has been ruled not mentally competent to stand trial.
The occasion of the briefing was a legal filing by lawyers for Ammar al-Baluchi, one of the defendants and Mr. Mohammed’s nephew, asking the judge to dismiss the case or at least the possibility of a death penalty because of real or apparent political interference by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, and other members of Congress last summer.
Persons:
Biden, ”, Clayton G, Trivett Jr, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Ammar al, Mohammed’s, Ted Cruz
Organizations:
Republican
Locations:
Guantánamo, Texas