Sitting in the front row of a court-martial at the US Naval Base Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the world’s most notorious defendants, appeared to be listening intently.
“Can you confirm that Mr. Mohammed pleads guilty to all charges and specifications with no exceptions or substitutions?” the judge asked his lawyer as Mohammed watched.
“Yes, we can, Your Honor,” replied the lawyer.
Sitting in court, 59-year-old Mohammed, beard dyed bright orange, wearing a headdress, tunic and trousers, looked little like the photograph circulated shortly after his capture in 2003.
Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US, was due to plead guilty this week – more than 23 years after nearly 3,000 people were killed in what the US government described as “the world’s most outrageous crime on American soil in modern history”.
But two days later, just as Mohammed was set to formally enter his decision — the product of a controversial deal he struck with U.S. prosecutors — he instead watched silently as a judge said the case was paused under federal appeals court orders.
It was expected to be a landmark week for the case, which has faced decades of delays. Now, with a new complication, it continues into an uncertain future.
“It will be an eternal trial,” said a relative of one of the 9/11 victims.
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Mohammed previously said he planned “Operation 9/11 from A-to-Z” – coming up with the idea of training pilots to fly commercial aircraft inside buildings and taking those plans to Osama bin Laden, the leader of the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda.
However, he has not yet managed to formally confess his guilt in court. This week’s break comes amid a dispute over a deal reached last year between US prosecutors and his legal team, under which Mohammed would not face a death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea.
The US government has months tried to break the agreementsaying that allowing the deal to take place would cause “irreparable” harm to both her and the American public. Those who support the deal see it as the only way forward in a case complicated by the torture Mohammed and others faced in US custody and the question of whether it taints evidence.
After a last-minute appeal by prosecutors, a three-judge panel of the federal appeals court asked for a delay to give them time to consider the arguments before making a decision.
But the victims’ families were already flying once a week to the base to watch the pleas in the gallery, where they and reporters were separated by thick glass from the rest of the spacious, high-security courtroom.
The participants won their place at this week’s meeting through a lottery. They arranged for babysitters and paid for dog sitters for their pets – knowing they could be recalled at any moment. On Thursday evening, while speaking to the media at the base hotel, they learned that the petitions would no longer be implemented.
Elizabeth Miller, whose father, New York City firefighter Douglas Miller, was killed in the attacks when she was six, said she was in favor of continuing the deal to “bring finality” but acknowledged there were other families who I feel he was too lenient.
“What’s so frustrating is that every time this comes back and comes back, every camp gets its hopes up and then it comes crashing down again,” she said, as other relatives nodded in agreement.
“It’s like eternal limbo… It’s like a constant whiplash.”
The latest cases of Guantanamo Bay
This week’s break is just the latest in a series of delays, complications and controversies at the base, where the US military has held prisoners for 23 years.
The military prison at Guantanamo Bay was established during the “war on terror” that followed the 9/11 attacks that Mohammed is accused of masterminding. The first detainees were brought on January 11, 2002.
Then-President George Bush issued a military order establishing military courts to try non-US citizens, saying they could be held without charge indefinitely and that their detention could not be legally challenged.
Dressed in bright orange jumpsuits, 20 men were brought to a temporary detention camp called X-Ray, where the cells were exposed to cages and the beds were mats on the floor.
The camp, surrounded by barbed wire, is now long abandoned and overgrown – weeds grow on the wooden lookouts and the signs along the fence say “forbidden” in red text.
Although conditions at Guantanamo have improved, it still faces criticism from the United Nations and human rights groups for its treatment of prisoners. And it continues to challenge U.S. officials and advocates who hope it will be shut down.
As president, Barack Obama promised to close the prison during his term, saying it was against American values. Those efforts have been revived under the Biden administration.
Unlike Mohammed, most of the people held there since its inception have never been charged with any crime.
The current detention facilities are off-limits to journalists, and access is allowed only to those who have a security clearance.
A short drive away is an Irish pub, a McDonald’s, a bowling alley and a museum that caters to military personnel and contractors on the base – most of whom have never been to the prison area.
As legal teams, journalists and families gathered at the base for Mohammed’s planned plea, an undercover operation was carried out early in the morning to take a group of 11 Yemeni detainees off the base for relocation to Oman.
With that transfer, the base, which once held nearly 800 detainees, now has only 15 – the lowest number in its history.
Of the rest, all but six have been charged with or convicted of war crimes, with lawyers arguing their cases in complex legal battles in the base’s heavily guarded courtrooms.
As court adjourned on Friday, the judge said Mohammed’s pleas, if allowed, would now fall to the next US administration for consideration.
