23 years after the terrorist attack on September 11, in which almost 3,000 people died, the end of the trial of the three organizers who have been in the custody of the US Navy since 2003 is in sight. As reported by The New York Times, in the settlement, the main organizer and two associates agreed to plead guilty for the organization of terrorist attacks, to replace a possible death sentence with a life sentence.
Prosecutors say this is a step toward “an end and justice” in the 23-year-old case. “In exchange for the abolition of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three defendants agreed to plead guilty to all the crimes they are charged with, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the indictment,” states the letter signed by Rear Adm. Aaron C. Rugh, lead prosecutor for the military commissions, and three attorneys on his team.
In the attacks of September 11, 2001, 19 hijackers of the terrorist group al-Qaeda hijacked four planes, two of which (American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175) crashed into the skyscrapers of the World Trade Center, popularly called the “twin towers”, one is rammed into the Pentagon building (American Airlines Flight 77), while the last one (United Airlines Flight 93) crashed into a field after a revolt by passengers trying to prevent terrorists from reaching their targets, which were later identified as the Capitol building or the White House.
