The reaction was slow to follow news that three terrorists who planned the Sept. 11 terror attacks will escape the ultimate punishment after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors on Wednesday.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi were awaiting trial at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, when they reached an agreement with the Military Commissions Convening Authority, said Susan Escallier of the Department of Defense (DOD).
The three defendants are accused of providing training, financial support and other assistance to the 19 terrorists who hijacked passenger jets and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 11, 2001.
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A hijacked plane crashes into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. (Seth McAllister/AFP via Getty Images)
Upon hearing the news on Wednesday, loved ones of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks reacted with anger and disappointment.
“I'm very disappointed. We've waited patiently for a long time. I wanted the death penalty, but the government has failed us,” Daniel D'Allara, whose twin brother, John, was an NYPD officer who died in the attacks, told the New York Post.
Pedestrians in Lower Manhattan look at the plume of smoke rising from the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. The masterminds behind the terrorist attacks reached a plea deal with prosecutors on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)
“I feel like I've been kicked in the balls,” said Jim Smith, a former football player. Police officer and husband of Moira Smith, the only female NYPD officer killed on 9/11, told the Post: “The prosecution and the families have waited 23 years for our day in court to see what these animals did to our loved ones.”
Brett Eagleson, who was 15 when his father, Bruce, died while working at the World Trade Center in New York City, told the Boston Herald that news of the plea deal was “a shitty moment.”
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Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (FBI | Getty Images)
“It's just another move to wrap up 9/11, put it in a box and make it go away,” he said.
Meanwhile, lawmakers and other public officials criticized the Biden administration over the deal.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called the plea deal a “disgrace” and blamed the Biden administration.
“Anything short of execution is a complete and total miscarriage of justice. Time and again, this administration displays weakness in the face of our adversaries,” he wrote in X.
Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, former President Trump's running mate in this year's presidential election cycle, criticized the plea deal while addressing supporters at a campaign rally in Glendale, Arizona, on Wednesday night.
Firefighters are shown among the rubble after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001. (Courtesy of Frank Paplia)
“We need a president who will kill terrorists, not negotiate with them,” he told supporters.
Patrick Hendry, president of the New York City Police Benevolent Association, said: “His crime deserves the maximum punishment. There should be no plea deal and no leniency.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said all three defendants have American blood on their hands.
“Yet they were apparently allowed to plead guilty and avoid the death penalty, and potentially received a host of other conditions,” Graham wrote on social media. “From the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan to breaching borders and empowering Iran, the Biden-Harris administration has been a dream team for terrorists and rogue states like Iran.”
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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., called the deal a “slap in the face” to loved ones of those killed.
“America has been in mourning for weeks as emergency crews sifted through ash at Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and the crash site in Shanksville,” he wrote. “For more than two decades, the families of those killed by these terrorists have waited for justice. This plea deal is a slap in the face to those families. They deserved better from the Biden-Harris Administration.”
