Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed reportedly wants to trade his help to terror victims in their lawsuit against Saudi Arabia in exchange for the federal government not seeking the death penalty in his case.
The offer came in a filing last Friday in the victims' federal lawsuit in New York, which accuses the Saudi government of helping coordinate the 2001 suicide plane hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The Saudis have denied complicity.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs reached out to three of five Guantanamo Bay prisoners accused of conspiring in the attacks, after which they wrote Mohammed's lawyer said he would not agree to a deposition now, but "[i]n the absence of a potential death sentence much broader cooperation would be possible," the Journal reported.
At a June 2008 hearing, Mohammed once interrupted a military judge who called his proceedings a "death penalty case" to say it was a "martyr case," the Journal noted.
"This is what I wish. I've been looking to be martyred for a long time," Mohammed said, according to the Journal.
But things have changed.
"A lot has happened in the past 10 years," an unnamed source told the Journal. "The 9/11 defendants are not as interested as they once were in martyring themselves."
"We're trying to leave no stone unturned," James Kreindler, a lawyer for the Sept. 11 victims suing Saudi Arabia, told the Journal on Monday. "But who knows whether they'll ever testify or be honest or be cooperative?"
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