9/11 plot suspect deemed unfit for trial, military panel rules: NYT
Ramzi bin Al-Shibh is among a group of five individuals who have allegedly conspired in the September 11 attacks in 2001.
A military medical board has concluded that Ramzi bin Al-Shibh, a suspect accused of conspiring in the planning of the September 11 attacks, suffers from a mental disorder that renders him incompetent to participate in the trial or enter a guilty plea in the capital punishment case, The New York Times reported, citing a report filed with his trial judge on Friday.
This happened shortly after a military judge invalidated the admission of guilt made by an individual detained in Guantanamo and charged with orchestrating the U.S.S. Cole bombing. The judge ruled that the confession was tainted due to the individual's torture by the CIA, which the intelligence agency is notorious for, especially at Guantanamo Bay.
Read next: New book exposes CIA abhorrent rendition and torture program
Last week, the Pentagon and FBI informed relatives of some of the thousands killed in the September 11 attacks that the alleged architect behind the attack may be granted a plea bargain after two decades of a lengthy trial.
After considering several possibilities such as detaining, deporting, or prosecuting them, one senior official remarked, "Why don't we just kill them?"
— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) April 13, 2022
A new book exposes the #CIA's rendition and torture techniques, linking them to the practices of #AbuGhraib prison authorities. pic.twitter.com/o2h2A2uDKl
The letter obtained by the Associated Press detailed that repeated delays and disputes, including their torture at the hands of CIA agents, have slowed the prosecution process of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others currently held in Guantanamo Bay with no prosecution date in sight.
According to the contents, “The Office of the Chief Prosecutor has been negotiating and is considering entering into pre-trial agreements,” or PTAs, adding that a possibility of a PTA may remove the possibility of the death penalty for the accused.
Mohammed was the alleged mastermind behind the attack on the US, with the US 9/11 Commission claiming that he received authorization from Osama bin Laden to undertake the terror attacks. The other four defendants are accused of allegedly aiding and abetting Mohammed in numerous methods.
Read next: Voices from the Inside Speak Of 9/11
CIA recruited at least two 9/11 hijackers: Court filing
A new court filing in April dropped a bombshell unmasking one of the CIA's most atrocious scandals in decades: At least two 9/11 hijackers had been recruited into a highly covert CIA-Saudi intelligence operation.
The filing, which has recently been publicized, revealed that the contact between two 9/11 hijackers and Alec Station, a CIA unit allegedly created to track Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his associates, was covered up at the highest levels of the FBI.
CBS News previously reported that new documents come about two months after the bureau published a 16-page document revealing the significant logistical support that two Saudi hijackers received in the United States.
The office had previously investigated three Saudi nationals believed to have prior knowledge of the attack, including an official at the Saudi embassy in Washington.
Relatives of the victims sought to obtain the records, trying to prove the complicity of the Saudi government, and the Saudi embassy in Washington did not comment on the issued memo.
Read more: 'Cruel, inhuman, degrading': UN demands US apology over Guantanamo Bay
In May, research showed that the wars launched by the US in the Middle East and North Africa in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks have directly or indirectly killed at least 4.5 million people and displaced millions more.
The study by Brown University Watson Institute's Costs of War project detailed how almost one million people have directly died as a result of conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia.
The report released on May 15 noted that at least 3.6 to 3.7 million of the casualties were "indirect" deaths caused by a variety of factors, such as failed economies, extreme poverty, malnutrition, disease, destroyed health infrastructure, environmental contamination, and reverberating trauma and violence.
After more than two decades, the number of direct and indirect war victims from ongoing worldwide conflicts continues to rise, according to the research.