23 Years Later, The Rejected Plea Deal Is A New Travesty For 9/11 Families

Even though Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rejected the deal that took the death penalty off the table for three of the masterminds of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, people are still outraged that the deal to spare their lives was even offered in the first place. For a smaller number of Americans, who lost loved ones in the attack, the fact that the terrorists are still alive at Guantanamo Bay with no justice in sight offers even less solace as another 9/11 anniversary draws near. Award-winning NorthJersey.com columnist Mike Kelly has spent time at Guantanamo covering stories related to the terrorists and 9/11 and appeared on 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program to discuss the logistical can of worms the United States opened by offering the deal in the first place.

Kelly told Berman and Riedel the way the prisoners have been handled sets up several major hurdles with regard to how to handle them. “One of the big problems is that these prisoners have been tortured, and so it creates all kinds of legal issues. The other issue is the fact that our Congress has passed a law, and it was signed into law, preventing these guys from being out on trial in the United States, so that’s one big reason why they’ve been left in Guantanamo. Logically, they should have been brought to New York, brought to Pearl Street, the federal courthouse, put on trial, and then be sent away to Supermax in Colorado at this point or perhaps given the death penalty, we don’t know. But this has been a very complicated road, and now our government has to go back and rethink this, and I’m not sure we have the patience or the know-how to do this.”

What further complicates the issue, Kelly feels, is the general sense of apathy towards 9/11 issues by people who were not in New York that day. “It’s getting to be a point now where the American public has largely moved on, and that’s pretty sad, because there are some major questions that need to be answered, and there are other issues, not the least of which is the health issue for people who were exposed to toxins down there. An average of three fire fighters are dying every month from this stuff. This problem is going to hang with us in a very real way in the coming decades.”

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