"Devil's Advocate":
Exclusive: Husband of 9/11 victim goes to Gitmo to spare plotters from death sentence
NY PostThe husband of a woman killed on 9/11 went to Guantanamo Bay on a shocking secret mission — to try to save the lives of the al-Qaeda monsters who planned the murder.
Blake Allison — one of 10 relatives of victims to win a lottery for tickets to the arraignment of confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his evil accomplices — had told people he was making the trip because “I wanted to see the faces of the people accused of murdering my wife.’’
But while there, the 62-year-old wine-company executive held a clandestine meeting with the terrorists’ lawyers, in which he offered to testify against putting their clients to death.
APNIGHTMARE: Anna Allison was aboard one of the jets flown into the Twin Towers in a plot orchestrated by Khalid Sheik Mohammed (above). Now her husband wants to help him.
NIGHTMARE: Anna Allison was aboard one of the jets flown into the Twin Towers in a plot orchestrated by Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Now her husband wants to help him.A vocal critic of capital punishment, Allison wants to convince the US government to spare the lives of KSM and his minions even if a military commission convicts them of a slew of death-penalty charges.
“The public needs to know there are family members out there who do not hold the view that these men should be put to death,” Allison told The Post.
“We can’t kill our way to a peaceful tomorrow.”
Allison’s 48-year-old wife, Anna, was a software consultant on her way to visit a client in Los Angeles when her plane, American Airlines Flight 11, was smashed into World Trade Center Tower 1 on Sept. 11, 2001.
In a lengthy conversation from his home in New Hampshire, Allison explained his controversial view — one he admits is not shared by his late wife’s relatives or by the other family members of victims he met at Guantanamo.
“My opposition to the death penalty does not say I don’t want the people who killed my wife and [the other 911 victims] brought to account for their crimes,” he said.
“But for me, opposition to the death penalty is not situational. Just because I was hurt very badly and personally does not, in my mind, give me the go-ahead to take a life.”
He said that “9/11 was a particularly egregious and appalling crime,” but added, “I just think it’s wrong to take a life.”
Allison, who has remarried, is under no illusion that the terrorists have reformed — and would not gladly kill more Americans.
After staring at the fiendish faces of KSM, Ramzi bin al Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Mustafa al-Hawsawi and KSM nephew Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Allison said he is certain they have “no apparent remorse and would do it again.”
Still, he said, “I’ve been opposed to the death penalty for decades, before my wife was murdered on 9/11.
“I’m still opposed to it.”
He said he spoke to other family members at Guantanamo and came to realize he was alone in his view.
