In response to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin revoking a plea agreement that was reached earlier this week, Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights program at Amnesty International USA, made the following statement:
“This is a terrible development. The victims of the 9/11 attacks deserve accountability for the horrendous crimes committed after waiting more than 20 years.
“The defendants, who were brutally tortured and mistreated by U.S. agents and then detained without trial for more than 20 years, deserve a fair judicial resolution of their cases.
“The death penalty should have been taken off the table long ago. It is shameful for the defense secretary after all these years to intervene now to prevent the resolution of this case, at a time when the United States should be making every effort to acknowledge, account for and finally end the abuses of the post-9/11 ‘war on terror’”.
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