Accused Sept Il plotters to plead guilty to conspiracy and murder

Plea deal stirs anger, relief among families of nearly 3,000 victims of 200I terror attacks

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The man accused of plotting the attacks of Sept 11, 2001, and two of his accomplices have agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and murder charges in exchange for a life sentence rather than a death penalty trial in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prosecutors said on July 31.

Prosecutors said the deal was meant to bring some "finality and justice" to the case, particularly for the families of nearly 3,000 people who were killed in the attacks in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.

After talks with prosecutors across 27 months in Guantanamo, defendants Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi reached the deal, which was approved on July 31 by a senior Pentagon official overseeing the war court.

The men have been in US custody since 2003. But the case had become mired in more than a decade of pre-trial proceedings that focused on the question of whether their torture in secret Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) prisons had contaminated the evidence against them.

Word of the deal emerged in a letter from war court prosecutors to Sept 11 family members.