DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Attorneys say Austin violated military rules in halting deal for alleged 9/11 conspirators
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-07 | by ( Haley Britzky | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

Wednesday’s pretrial hearing, which has been scheduled for months, followed a whiplash decision by Austin to revoke a plea deal that had been announced just two days prior last week. “What he did was illegal,” Eugene Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale University and co-founded the National Institute of Military Justice, told CNN. But Sowards argued Wednesday that by revoking the deal, Austin was actually doing more harm to the families. While the terms of the pretrial agreement had not been released publicly, among them was the assurance that the detainees would answer questions by 9/11 victim family members. Sowards said family members had already “been submitting questions in good faith,” and expecting answers in return as part of the deal.

Persons: Lloyd Austin, ”, ” Walter Ruiz, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, Austin, Susan Escallier, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘ Attash, Ruiz, “, ” Austin, ” Eugene Fidell, Gary Sowards, Mohammad, ” Sowards, Clayton Trivett, ’ ”, Austin “, Antony Blinken, “ I’m, Sowards, Wells Dixon, Majid Khan, Khan, Dixon, ” Dixon, Eugene Fidell’s Organizations: CNN —, Defense, Guantanamo, Pentagon, White, White House, Yale University, National Institute of Military, CNN, Military Commissions, Austin, Military, Australian, American, ”, Center for Constitutional Rights Locations: Guantanamo, Austin, Belize

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday withdrew the plea deal for the three men accused of planning the 9/11 attacks. Austin announced the move in a letter addressed to Susan Escallier, the convening authority for military commissions, who had worked to negotiate the deal. "Effective immediately, I hereby withdraw your authority in the above-referenced case to enter into a pre-trial agreement and reserve such authority to myself," Austin said in the letter. Officials said on Wednesday that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi had reached plea agreements. The three men were expected to plead guilty to lesser charges that would prevent them from receiving the death penalty.

Persons: Lloyd Austin, Austin, Susan Escallier, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘ Attash, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi Organizations: WASHINGTON —, Friday

☆ Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal for Accused Sept. 11 Plotters
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-02 | by ( Carol Rosenberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Friday overruled the overseer of the war court at Guantánamo Bay and revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two alleged accomplices. Gen. Susan K. Escallier, signed a pretrial agreement on Wednesday with Mr. Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi that exchanged guilty pleas for sentences of at most life in prison. In taking away the authority, Mr. Austin assumed direct oversight of the case and canceled the agreement, effectively reinstating it as a death-penalty case. He left Ms. Escallier in the role of oversight of Guantánamo’s other cases. Because of the stakes involved, the “responsibility for such a decision should rest with me,” Mr. Austin said in an order released Friday night by the Pentagon.

Persons: Lloyd J, Austin III, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Susan K, Escallier, Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Mustafa al, Austin, ” Mr Organizations: Pentagon, Defense Department Locations: Guantánamo, New York City, Pennsylvania, Brig

☆ Defense secretary abruptly revokes plea deal with alleged 9/11 mastermind KSM, co-conspirators
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-02 | by ( Oren Liebermann | Evan Perez | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin abruptly revoked a plea deal for the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and his co-conspirators, and he relieved the overseer in charge after years of effort to reach an agreement to bring the cases to a close. Prosecutors in the case had been discussing the possibility of a plea deal for more than two years, which would have avoided a lengthy trial complicated by questions over the admissibility of evidence obtained during torture. The US had said it would seek the death penalty for Mohammed. US criminal courts for decades have dealt with high profile terror trials, including with death sentences, which Holder had authorized. “They were dealt a bad hand by political hacks and ideologues who lost faith in our justice system.

Persons: Lloyd Austin, Austin, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Bin ‘ Attash, Hawsawi –, Susan Escallier, ” Austin, Mohammed, ”, Brett Eagleson, Democratic Sen, Richard Blumenthal, ” Sen, Lindsey Graham, “, George W, Bush, Eric Holder, Barack Obama’s, Holder, ” Holder, Daniel Pearl, ideologues, CNN’s Manu Raju, Morgan Rimmer Organizations: CNN —, Pentagon, Prosecutors, Democratic, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, CNN, South Carolina Republican, Wall Street Journal Locations: Guantanamo, Pearl, Richard Blumenthal of, Manhattan, Pakistan

Eleven years ago, in 2013, Holder said that Mohammed and his associates would have been “on death row as we speak” had the case gone to federal court as he proposed. But he blamed Congress for blocking a federal trial that would have resulted in swifter justice. They were dealt a bad hand by the political hacks and those who lost faith in our justice system,” Holder said in a statement to NBC News on Thursday. “If my decision to try KSM and his confederates in the tested and effective federal court system had been followed they would be nothing more than a memory today,” Holder said. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., said he’s “long advocated that our federal court system is perfectly capable of conducting this kind of trial” and was well-suited to handling serious crimes.

Persons: Eric Holder, ”, Holder, ” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘ Attash, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al, General Holder, Mohammed, ” Holder, KSM, “, ” Eric Holder, Chip Somodevilla, Rudy Giuliani —, Donald Trump’s, —, Giuliani, Tsarnaev, William Barr, Trump, George H.W, George H.W . Bush, hadn’t, ” Barr, he’d, he’s, Barr, Alexanda Amon Kotey, Joe Biden’s, Mitch McConnell, McConnell, Sen, Chris Coons, doesn’t, ” Coons, Richard Blumenthal, Conn, “ I’ve, ” Sen, Chris Van Hollen, Biden, Thom Tillis, I’m, ” Tillis, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton Organizations: WASHINGTON, Guantanamo, Pentagon, CIA, NBC, New York City, Prisons, Boston Marathon, Rockies, Republican, Trump, Justice Department, Islamic State, White, NBC News, House Locations: United States, Guantanamo, Manhattan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, America, Pakistan, Caribbean, ADMAX Florence, Colorado, ”, George H.W ., ADMAX, Florence, Ky

☆ Accused Sept. 11 Plotters Agree to Plead Guilty at Guantánamo Bay
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-31 | by ( Carol Rosenberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The man accused of plotting the attacks of Sept. 11 and two of his accomplices have agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges in exchange for a life sentence rather than a death-penalty trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, prosecutors said Wednesday. A senior Pentagon official approved the deal for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, according to Defense Department officials with knowledge of the agreement. The men have been in U.S. custody since 2003. But the case had become mired in more than a decade of pretrial proceedings that focused on the question of whether their torture in secret C.I.A. Word of the deal emerged in a letter from war court prosecutors to family members of victims of the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Persons: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Mustafa al, ”, Aaron C Organizations: Pentagon, Defense, “ Locations: Guantánamo Bay, Cuba

☆ 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, 2 others charged in terror plot reach plea deals
▼ + stars: | 2024-07-31 | by ( Dan Mangan | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

In a file photo Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, is seen shortly after his capture during a raid in Pakistan Saturday March 1, 2003, in this photo obtained by the Associated Press. Accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and two other men charged with plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks by al-Qaeda have agreed to plead guilty in the military commissions process, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The terms of the plea deals for the three men, who have been in custody since 2003, were not released, but they are expected to plead guilty to some charges, and potentially avoid death sentences as a result. The Office of Military Commission said that the defendants will enter their pleas as early as next week at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In addition to Mohammed, the other men expected to plead guilty are Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.

Persons: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, Aaron Rugh Organizations: Associated Press, Pentagon, Military Commission, New York Times Locations: Pakistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

☆ Qaeda Commander at Guantánamo Bay Is Sentenced for War Crimes
▼ + stars: | 2024-06-20 | by ( Carol Rosenberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

A U.S. military jury on Thursday ordered a former Qaeda commander to a serve a 30-year prison sentence for war crimes carried out by his insurgent forces in wartime Afghanistan in the early 2000s. The military judge excused the panel from the chamber and then announced that, under a plea agreement, the prisoner’s sentence would end in eight years. The outcome was part of the arcane system called military commissions, which allows prisoners to reach plea deals with a senior official at the Pentagon who oversees the war court but requires the formality of a jury sentencing hearing anyway. Mr. Hadi, 63, was aware of the deal that reduced his sentence to 10 years, starting with his guilty plea in June 2022. It was unclear whether victims of attacks by Mr. Hadi’s forces and their family members had been told.

Persons: Abd al, Hadi al, Hadi Organizations: U.S, Pentagon Locations: Afghanistan, C.I.A

☆ Civilian Prosecutors Rejected Evidence in 9/11 Case That Military Calls Crucial
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-16 | by ( Carol Rosenberg | Charlie Savage | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For years, a thorny question has dominated pretrial hearings in the military commissions case over the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: Did the men accused of plotting them voluntarily confess in 2007 after the C.I.A. had stopped torturing them, and could those statements be used as evidence at their eventual death-penalty trial? analyst revealed that in 2009, when the Obama administration was planning to instead try the men in civilian court, federal prosecutors had decided against trying to offer the statements as evidence. The revelation sets in stark relief the contrary decision by military prosecutors to build their case around summoning the F.B.I. It also underlines how that decision has opened the door to years of litigation and contributed to a lengthy delay in getting the case to trial.

Persons: Obama, Mark S, Martins Organizations: Brig Locations: Guantánamo

☆ Biden rejects conditions of plea deal for Sept. 11 attacks defendants
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The White House confirmed that Biden concurred with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's recommendation not to accept the conditions, known as joint policy principles, as a basis for plea talks. "The 9/11 attacks were the single worst assault on the United States since Pearl Harbor. More than 3,000 people were killed in the hijacked plane attacks by al Qaeda militants using four commercial airline jets, flying two of them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. The fourth plane went down in rural Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against the hijackers. Reporting by Jeff Mason and Dan Whitcomb; editing by Grant McCoolOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Persons: Joe Biden, Leah Millis, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Biden, Lloyd Austin's, al, Jeff Mason, Dan Whitcomb, Grant McCool Organizations: Warehouse Union, Pacific Maritime Association, White, REUTERS, Guantanamo, New York Times, U.S, Times, White House, World Trade, Pentagon, Washington , D.C, Thomson Locations: Washington , U.S, United States, Pearl, New York City, Washington ,, Pennsylvania

☆ Biden Rejects Conditions of Plea Deal for Sept. 11 Attacks Defendants
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Sept. | At P.M. | ) www.usnews.com time to read: +2 min

(Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden has rejected several conditions sought by five Guantanamo Bay prisoners as part of a deal with federal prosecutors that would see them plead guilty to conspiring in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. But the defendants have responded with a list conditions, including that they not serve their life sentences in solitary confinement and would be allowed to eat and pray with other inmates, the newspaper said. The White House confirmed that Biden concurred with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin's recommendation not to accept the conditions, known as joint policy principles, as a basis for plea talks. "The 9/11 attacks were the single worst assault on the United States since Pearl Harbor. The fourth plane went down in rural Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against the hijackers.

Persons: Joe Biden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Biden, Lloyd Austin's, al, Jeff Mason, Dan Whitcomb, Grant McCool Organizations: Reuters, Guantanamo, New York Times, U.S, Times, White House, White, World Trade, Pentagon, Washington , D.C Locations: United States, Pearl, New York City, Washington ,, Pennsylvania

☆ U.N. Body Condemns Torture of Guantánamo Prisoner Awaiting Capital Trial
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-04 | by ( Carol Rosenberg | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Why It Matters: Criticism of Guantánamo Bay is mounting, again. The report could be presented to a sentencing jury of U.S. military officers in Mr. Nashiri’s case. In October 2021, a military jury in the case of another Guantánamo prisoner who was tortured by the C.I.A. Mr. Nashiri’s lawyers describe him as a torture survivor who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other conditions attributed to untreated physical, psychological and sexual abuse. Mr. Nashiri has more hearings this month focused on what evidence can be used at his eventual capital trial.

Persons: Biden, Cole, Abd al Rahim, Janet Hamlin, Nashiri, Katie Carmon Organizations: International Committee, Pentagon, Associated Press Locations: Guantánamo, America, U.S, Aden Harbor, United States

☆ Ukraine yet to make defence a safe investor haven
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-20 | by ( Lisa Jucca | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

MUNICH, Feb 20 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The West’s rush to supply weapons to war-torn Ukraine looks like a golden opportunity for defence companies to exit the ESG doghouse. As with air-polluting coal, socially-minded investors including pension funds and insurers - particularly European ones - have long excluded or heavily restricted investment in defence companies on ethical grounds. Risk committees, particularly at domestic banks, are now more frequently assessing the merits of financing defence companies, two senior bankers among the 850 or so conference participants said. Proponents of the approach argue military companies that help Ukraine perform a globally valuable social function by upholding democracy. The Munich Security Index, a global risk perceptions survey conducted before the conference, showed security concerns had replaced climate challenges as the top concern.

☆ Pakistani returns home after 18 years of U.S. detention in Guantanamo prison camp
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-29 | by ( Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

KARACHI, Pakistan, Oct 29 (Reuters) - A Pakistani national held by the United States for 18 years in the Guantanamo Bay prison camp without trial on suspicion of links to al Qaeda returned home to Pakistan on Saturday, Pakistan and the United States said. "We are glad that a Pakistani citizen detained abroad is finally reunited with his family," the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in a statement. At 75, he was the oldest inmate at the camp, according to Reprieve, a London-based human rights group that worked on his case. It said in a statement that Paracha's continued detention was no longer necessary to protect against a "significant threat" to the security of the United States. The Defense Department said 35 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay, of whom 20 are eligible for transfer and three for a Periodic Review Board.

Search resuls for: "Military Commissions"

14 mentions found