American taxpayers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars to keep alleged 9/11 terrorists behind bars, reported the Daily Mail.
Estimates set the cost of their lifetime imprisonment at nearly $1 billion in taxpayer dollars.
The Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, where Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused as the mastermind of al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and alleged accomplices Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi are currently being held, costs taxpayers millions of dollars per year, despite little information about the prison.
President Joe Biden recently resuscitated a promise made by former President Barack Obama to close Gitmo before leaving office. If the detention facility were closed, the prisoners would likely move to ADX Florence in Colorado, which already holds some fellow 9/11 terrorists, according to the Mail.
According to an estimate by The New York Times in 2021, taxpayers spend close to $13 million on each prisoner — per year. Thirty-nine prisoners are currently housed at Gitmo.
With this math, taxpayers have spent $260 million on the five terrorist masterminds behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This costs have mushroomed since 2013, when it cost roughly $2.7 million to house each prisoner, according to the Mail.
By comparison, a "supermax" prison that holds high-risk convicts in the United States like ADX in Florence, averages $78,000 a year, per inmate.