The 9/11 terrorist masterminds have not only cost the U.S. thousands of lives, but also hundreds of millions of dollars to keep them in prison.
A plea deal reached this would have kept them in prison for life with no chance of the death penalty. But Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stepped in and took that deal off the table on Friday evening after widespread ridicule.
The man accused of coming up with the idea for the September 11, 2001 attacks and two of his co-conspirators agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and murder charges in exchange for a life sentence rather than a death penalty trial, prosecutors said this week.
After over two years of negotiations and over two decades of imprisonment, defendants Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi agreed to the deal and it was approved by a senior Pentagon official overseeing the war court.
In a shock move Austin not only took away the deal but also removed the head of the U.S. military commissions who approved the settlements from the 9/11 case entirely. The case now returns to a state of legal limbo.
Saturday March 1, 2003, photo obtained by The Associated Press shows Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, shortly after his capture in Pakistan
The mastersminds have been housed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and it’s unclear whether they will move to the notorious ‘supermax’ facility ADX Florence in Colorado if they are convicted.
Regardless, their imprisonment estimate until they die is estimated at nearly $1 billion taxpayer dollars total.
The Guantanamo Bay prison has become more and more secretive over its 20 years of operation, even as it costs taxpayers millions of dollars per year.
The Biden administration had signaled it aims to close the military prison in Cuba before leaving office, reviving an Obama-era promise. Biden said this week he is ‘determined’ to close Guantanamo before he leaves office in January.
Congress stood in the way of Obama’s effort by forbidding any detainee from stepping foot on the US mainland.
Guantanamo has reportedly cost U.S. taxpayers over $7 billion since its inception.
American taxpayers spend roughly $13 million on each prisoner, per year, according to a New York Times estimate in a 2021 report. The prison currently has 39 inmates.
That’s compared to $78,000 spent per inmate at the ‘supermax’ prison in Florence, Colo., home to some of the highest-risk prisoners in the U.S.
The U.S. government has not been forthright about tallying up the total cost spent imprisoning these alleged killers – but a DailyMail.com estimate of how much imprisonment of them over their lifetime will cost puts the figure at over $750 million.
The man accused of coming up with the idea for the September 11, 2001 attacks and two of his co-conspirators agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy and murder charges in exchange for a life sentence rather than a death penalty trial, prosecutors at Guantanamo Bay said this week.
Assuming that $13 million cost held through to today, the five men who planned and helped carried out the attack have cost U.S. taxpayers $260 million just in unclassified prison costs from 2021 to 2024. They’ll likely stay in Guantanamo through 2025 since their sentencing hearing isn’t until at least next summer, another $65 million.
Classified costs are sure to add to that, such as a CIA presence.
The per-prisoner cost has soared as time went on, and as fewer and fewer inmates are housed at the complex. In 2013 the operating cost was just around $2.7 million per prisoner meaning from 2006, when the 9/11 masterminds were transferred to Guantanamo, to 2013 they cost taxpayers around $108 million.
Assuming costs were halfway between the $2.7 million figure and the $13 million figure between 2013 and 2021, the prisoners costs $320 million.
But from when they were captured in 2003 to when they arrived at Guantanamo in 2006 they were in U.S. custody abroad, seemingly costing millions there too.
For years the U.S. has been trying to close Guantanamo – once deemed ‘America’s tiniest boutique prison, reserved exclusively for alleged geriatric jihadists.’ The facility costs over $500 million per year to operate.
For years the U.S. has been trying to close Guantanamo – once deemed ‘America’s tiniest boutique prison, reserved exclusively for alleged geriatric jihadists.’ The facility costs over $500 million per year to operate
Even some Democrats were dissatisfied with the available details of the now-defunct deal.
‘I am very concerned about this plea deal,’ Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a former trial lawyer, told DailyMail.com Thursday. ‘I think we ought to scrutinize it very carefully.’
‘I think there are interests here that may not have been represented as fairly and aggressively as they should have been.’
Over 150 of the nearly 3,000 victims of the dreadful 9/11 plot were Connecticut residents, according to local outlets. And Blumenthal joined them in their calls for the details of Saudi Arabia’s involvement to be released.
‘I championed the 9/11 families and their legal action against Saudi Arabia,’ Blumenthal continued. ‘There is so much here that we don’t know, and we have an obligation to tell the American people about the potential complicity, not only of these defendants, but of Saudi Arabia and other countries.’
The Democrat demanded the White House explain their reasoning for the deal.
‘No explanation whatsoever. And they owe me and Congress an explanation. But more importantly, the 9/11 families and the American people.’
It is yet unclear where the terrorists will serve their sentences. Joe Biden has been wanting to close Guantanamo Bay, where they are detained, since he came into office.
If the detention facility on the military base, known as Camp Delta, is shut down, the detainees could be moved to ADX Florence in Colorado, the only supermax prison in the U.S. that already houses 9/11 terrorists.
That prison had an operating cost of $78,000 per prisoner in 2018. Assuming that kept up with inflation, that would mean each inmate would cost around $107,000 to house.
Two of the five defendants were not included in the deal. One, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, was deemed not fit for trial due to mental illness. Another, Ammar al-Baluchi, could stand trial alone.
If the three men involved in the plea deal were transferred there upon conviction and lived another 20 years, they’d cost another $6.4 million. How long the other two would remain at Guantanamo is unknown.
All of these prison costs do not account for the cost of bringing a case against terrorists or the tens of billions the government pays out through a victims’ compensation fund.
In 2023 alone, the fund awarded $12.8 billion to over 56,000 claimants – the families of those who lost their lives on that day and to those who developed cancer years later allegedly from being exposed to toxins on the day of the attack.
