Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa al Hawsawi have been in confinement for over two decades since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which caused the deaths of 2,976 people. Considering the magnitude of this catastrophic event on the US, their day in court has been long overdue. This prolonged duration shows the fallacies in the assessments of the US judicial system.
According to the 6th Amendment of the United States Constitution, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.”
In an article for the New York Times, Carol Rosenberg and Eric Schmit reported from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: “First, a Pentagon official authorized a plea agreement meant to resolve the case with lifetime sentences. Then, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III abruptly canceled the deal, reviving the possibility that the man accused of planning the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and two accused accomplices could someday face a death penalty trial.”
The article further stated, “The contents of the deal are secret, aside from the fundamental reason for a plea agreement in a capital case: The government says it will not seek the death penalty in exchange for the defendants giving up the right to appeal their conviction.” This prolonged, pre-trial agreement would’ve gotten the accused out of a possible death penalty, but at what cost?
Consider cases of mass shootings. The American College of Surgeons reported in an article, “A total of 2,056 school shooting incidents were analyzed: The incidents involved 3,083 victims, including 2,033 children ages 5-17 years, and 1,050 adults ages 18-74 years.” We have had close to the same number of deaths due to such murderous acts, but domestic terrorists are convicted a lot sooner than non-domestic terrorists.
An article listed by The National Institute of Justice said, “Sixteen of the 20 deadliest mass shootings in modern history (i.e., from 1966 through 2019), occurred between 1999 and 2019, and eight of those sixteen occurred between 2014 and 2019.”
Part of that statistic is Nikolas Cruz. On Feb. 14, 2018, Cruz entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and shot and killed 17 people and wounded 17 others. He was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for initiating the deadliest high school shooting in US history.
Cruz was apprehended about an hour after the incident and charged the same day. He pleaded guilty, and it took 4 years and 9 months for Cruz to receive his sentencing. Similar to the 9/11 attackers, Cruz was denied a plea deal and had to plead guilty and was sentenced to 34 consecutive life sentences.
The number of casualties of the Parkland shooting and the events on 9/11 are drastically different, with the number of fatalities on 9/11 being 2,976. The number of casualties on 9/11 should influence the conclusion of the trial. The judicial system should consider the number of casualties and put more effort into getting the 9/11 case closed for the sake of the victims lives that been taken away.
Why have more recent cases of school shootings received attention and justice more quickly than acts of terrorism that took place over 20 years ago? Can we lead it back to the fact the convicted are non-domestic? The criminal charges for 9/11 question similar acts of terrorism committed across the world.
Consider the series of terrorist attacks committed by the Islamic State of Iraq in Paris on Nov. 13, 2015, which resulted 129 people killed and more than 400 injured. The trial of the surviving attacker, Salah Abdeslam, was one of the biggest trials in French judicial history.
Abdeslam was charged with murder along with other charges in Nov. 2016. His case began in Sept. 2021, and he was convicted to serve life in prison in Nov. 2022. The French judicial system took a total of six-and-a-half years to reach a conviction.
This comparison shows that other judicial processes handle terroristic acts with more seriousness and efficiency.
The two-decade wait for the trials of the 9/11 attackers reveals where our government’s judicial priorities lie in cases of terrorism and acts of murder. Considering the impact of the 9/11 attacks, the judicial system should reconsider its approaches to handling such cases and give them the priority and urgency they deserve.