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Elizabeth Miller

Press Release: September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows welcomes news that Judge Matthew McCall has ruled that pre-trial agreements with three of the 9/11 defendants are valid

Peaceful Tomorrows Supports Plea Agreements & Judicial Finality in the Case Against the 9/11 Accused


Contact: Peaceful Tomorrows (845) 754-1762


November 7th, 2024


On September 11, 2001, members of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows each lost a beloved family member. Today, 23 years later, we welcome news that Judge Matthew McCall has ruled that pre-trial agreements with three of the 9/11 defendants are valid.


Here’s what the plea agreements offer:

  1. Judicial finality and an end to the trial

  2. Guilty pleas from the accused

  3. Stipulations of fact by each defendant, already agreed to by the prosecution, the defense and the Convening Authority

  4. There will still be a ‘mini trial,’ as part of the defendants’ sentencing, where evidence is presented; this will likely last several months.

  5. An opportunity for 9/11 families to ask questions of the accused (indirectly) which they must answer truthfully

  6. The accused waive any right to appeal

  7. Life in prison without possibility of parole (confirmed for KSM; likely for the other accused)


More than 12 years after the defendants were arraigned, the prosecution recognized with great integrity that plea agreements offered an end to the legal purgatory 9/11 families have been living through. The Convening Authority, Brigadier General Susan Escallier, agreed and approved three pre-trial agreements in July. The implausibility of a trial ending with death penalty convictions that could withstand appeal had by then become widely recognized. Equally alarming was the possibility that the accused might die before a conviction - rendering them ‘innocent until proven guilty’ in the annals of history.


Although not the outcome Peaceful Tomorrows’ families had initially advocated for, plea agreements end this long legal nightmare with convictions that provide accountability, protect others from harm, and allow us to spend energy and effort moving forward – having closed this chapter of the past.

  



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