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On July 31, the U.S. Defense Department announced a plea agreement likely to bring life in prison for three men held in Guantanamo; Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, three of the co-accused in the 9/11 case. The prisoners’ attorneys had worked for many years despite the restrictions of their legal rights under the Military Commissions Act. Two days later, Lloyd Austin, the U.S. Defense Secretary, arbitrarily and abruptly canceled the agreement, apparently because some 9/11 families don’t care anything about due process but will only accept the men being executed. From Andy Worthington: 9/11 plea deals cynically revoked after just 48 hours. Austin’s order puts the men back into the legal limbo designed by the U.S. use of “military commissions,” and profoundly shaped by the torture they underwent for years in CIA “black” sites and then in Guantanamo, where they’re been for about two decades. You, readers, will know the sordid techniques this “civilized” government used, which has been criticized even by U.S. Senate reports and condemned by actually civilized organizations across the globe, including the the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism who said, after her visit to Guantanamo, that the U.S. torture regime is ongoing. |
