The Department of Defense on Wednesday referred the charges of the co-conspirators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to a military commission.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind, and several others could face the death penalty if convicted, the Defense Department said.
They have been charged with executing the attacks, causing the deaths of nearly 3,000 people, the Pentagon said.
This is the second time that Mohammed and his co-conspirators have been referred.
Anthony D. Romero, the head of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), called Wednesday’s decision a “terrible mistake.”
He added, “Whatever verdict comes out of the Guantanamo military commissions will be tainted by an unfair process and the politics that wrongly pulled these cases from federal courts, which have safely and successfully handled hundreds of terrorism trials.”
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