For 22 years, my family and I — and most of all my sister, Laura, and the nearly 3,000 others who were killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks — have been denied justice.
The betrayal began with the Bush administration’s 2003 decision to take the men accused of planning and supporting the attacks to CIA “black sites,” where they were tortured.
When a majority pleaded guilty, the judge was unsure how to proceed since Guantanamo rules were unclear about death sentences if the defendants had no lawyers.The Obama administration made a half-hearted attempt in 2009 to move the 9/11 case to federal court in New York.In 2018, six years after the five accused were arraigned for a second time, no trial had begun.
By March 2022, the complete failure of the 9/11 military commission became so apparent that the prosecution — the attorneys representing the US government and the American people — began plea-agreement negotiations with the defense.