Opinion

No deal for KSM and other 9/11 plotters

A plea deal that spares 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the death penalty? Hell no.

The Biden Justice and Defense departments are reaching out to 9/11 families to ask how they’d feel about a bargain that guarantees KSM and his four co-defendants don’t face execution.

Some may agree. They may be wishing for closure on the worst day of their lives, and maybe 3,000 life sentences, to be served consecutively, would be enough to finally end the “prosecution” that’s strung on for well over a decade.

But we’re pretty sure they won’t get many takers; it’s beyond obscene that they’d even ask.

KSM & Co. have been lodged at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp since 2006, as military-justice bureaucrats debate how to try them.

The Trump team ruled out any plea bargain, but now the Biden Pentagon’s Office of the Chief Prosecutor is looking to deal, presumably to at last get rid of the hot potato before the next election.

(Or maybe after a possible Biden re-election, since he’ll never face the voters again after 2024.)

Whatever the thinking, it would be an injustice.

KSM’s terror attacks killed nearly 3,000 innocents in the Twin Towers, Pentagon and aboard United 93 — and the planners hoped for far more.

The Justice and Defense Departments reportedly reached out to 9/11 families about the potential plea deal.
The Justice and Defense Departments reportedly reached out to 9/11 families about the potential plea deal. Photo by Robert Giroux/Getty Images

More: 9/11 was an assault on the entire nation, and there is absolutely no question about guilt here.

It’s ridiculous that the military lawyers have dragged the case out so long, and utter madness that they’re now looking for an escape hatch.

Get the trial started, demand death and finally send KSM to his deserved fate in the depths of Hell.