Plea deal reached: 9/11 mastermind admits guilt, avoids death penalty

The perpetrators behind the attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001 have reached a plea agreement and admitted their guilt, the Pentagon reported.

"A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the plea deals almost certainly involved guilty pleas in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table," Reuters reported.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is accused of leading the conspiracy aimed at striking the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon with hijacked planes.

Reuters emphasises that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is "the most well-known inmate at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay," which was established in 2002 by the then-president of the USA, George W. Bush. It was there that individuals suspected of carrying out the attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001 were detained.

Mohammed was arrested in 2003. Five years later, he was charged with, among other things, conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, destruction of property in violation of the law of war, and terrorism and material support of terrorism, CNN reports.

The start of the trial for the perpetrators has been repeatedly delayed. The reason for the delays included legal doubts after it was revealed that the detainees were repeatedly tortured during interrogations. According to a Senate Commission report from 2014, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding as many as 183 times, a form of torture that induces the sensation of drowning and suffocation in the victim. This issue posed a legal problem for prosecutors regarding whether evidence obtained through torture is admissible in court.

The attacks on 11 September claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people. In response to their execution, the United States engaged in a two-decade-long war in Afghanistan.