Brussels: Europe and the Arabs

Pakistani jihadist and al-Qaeda member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, and two other defendants have all accepted a plea deal that will be issued against them in the United States. The US Department of Defense announced this in a brief statement late Wednesday evening. It was reported by newspapers in Brussels from the Belgian news agency early Thursday morning.

The Pentagon did not publish details of the agreement with Mohammed, who is being held at the controversial American prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. According to the New York Times, the Pakistani pleads guilty in exchange for a life sentence, thus avoiding a trial before a military court where he would be sentenced to death.

In addition to Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi also agreed to the plea deal. They were also held at Guantanamo Bay for two decades.

The three men are being tried for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people during the attacks in New York and Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001.