Obama Admin May Permit 9/11 Suspects To Plead Guilty In Capital Cases
WASHINGTON — Guantanamo detainees facing the death penalty could plead guilty without a full trial under a plan the Obama administration is considering, a senior administration official said Saturday.
The option, one of a number being debated by a Justice Department-led task force, would be aimed at the five detainees accused of planning the Sept. 11 attacks, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the task force's deliberations have not been made public.
It was unclear whether the option, first reported by The New York Times, was being considered for detainees other than those accused directly in the 2001 terrorist strikes.
The task force has not presented any recommendation to the White House on how to handle the remaining detainees at Guantanamo, the official said.
The five detainees wrote a letter on Nov. 4 _ the day Barack Obama was elected president _ saying they wanted to confess, presumably to plead guilty and face the death penalty. At least two, including the self-described mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have said they want to be executed to achieve martyrdom.
But the formal confessions were delayed when a judge ruled that two defendants couldn't enter pleas until the court determined their mental competency. The other three said they would also wait.
The judge, Army Col. Stephen Henley, asked lawyers to advise him whether the Pentagon could apply the death penalty without a jury trial.
As one of his first acts after taking office, Obama ordered Guantanamo closed by January 2010. He said it had caused the United States more harm than good and served as a recruitment tool for the al-Qaida terrorist network. The Justice Department-led task force is one of several trying to determine the best way to handle the remaining 200 or so detainees at Guantanamo.
U.S. military commissions set up by the Bush administration to handle suspected terrorists have come under heavy criticism from legal and human rights groups. U.S. military prosecutions employing this structure and legal rules have for the most part been put on hold since January while the Obama administration considered other options.
Obama recently approved the continued use of these commissions.
The option under review by the task force specifies that Congress would have to clarify the uncertainty that was built into the 2006 law authorizing the creation of the military commissions. That law left unclear the question of whether guilty pleas could be accepted in capital cases conducted via the military commission format.
These pleas under U.S. law are allowed in federal civilian courts and in the courts of most states with capital punishment statutes.
Traveling in France with Obama, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said the president "has been clear that he hopes to work with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to improve the military commissions act to ensure that we can ensure more due process and deliver what has been long in coming: swift and certain justice. To suggest that any of the decisions have been made is not accurate."
Loading comments…
LARA JAKES | 06/ 6/09 10:27 PM |