9/11 cancer victims want say in death penalty debate
Cancer victims exposed to the smoldering toxic 9/11 pile in Manhattan have become the forgotten casualties of the terror attack — and their numbers are growing as more die almost every day, attorney Dan Hansen says.
The hijackers killed 2,977 people on 9/11.
Another 6,888 have died from cancer since.
As of this summer, 84,494 have been diagnosed with some form of cancer in the past two-plus decades since the attacks, says Hansen.
Not involving all these families in the fate of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his accomplices is “bull,” Hansen told the Herald.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has reversed a plea deal that would have allowed Mohammed and his killer cohorts to escape the death penalty. A bill in Congress just filed calls for “a sentence of death shall be available” and for the Biden-Harris Administration to “immediately” set a new trial date.
“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should face the same grim fate” that cancer victims are now dealing with, said Hansen. “If you’re cutting a deal, don’t cut us out. They shouldn’t ask for our forgiveness after the fact.”
Hansen, who stressed his firm is apolitical, says the “bureaucracy runs itself, but it wasn’t their right to step into the shoes of victims.”
He added he’s “thankful” Austin stepped in, but “heads should roll” for any allowing Mohammed “to get away with close to 10,000 murders.”
Austin now has the sole authority to make — or break — all deals with the 9/11 terrorists and that’s just what he did by revoking “the pre-trial agreements that were signed in those cases” that gave the al-Qaeda killers life sentences, as he wrote in his memo earlier this month.
In a stunning move, Austin is grabbing control from the military court over the fates of Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, three of the co-accused in the 9/11 attacks.
His memo goes on to say that “in light of the significance of the decision,” the final authority rests with him. He does not say what he will do next, but it is clear that the death penalty is back in play.
All the 9/11 defendants remain locked up in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where a military tribunal is slowly attempting to bring them to justice.