Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal For 9/11 Plotters

The New York Times reports:

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Friday overruled the overseer of the war court at Guantánamo Bay and revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two alleged accomplices.

The Pentagon announced the decision with a memorandum relieving the senior Defense Department official responsible for military commissions of her oversight of the capital case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his alleged accomplices for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.

The overseer, retired Brig. Gen. Susan K. Escallier, signed a pretrial agreement on Wednesday with Mr. Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi that exchanged guilty pleas for sentences of at most life in prison.

NPR reports:

Many 9/11 family members and elected officials had celebrated the deals, which they view as the only practical way to resolve the case. But others, including some members of Congress, condemned the settlements as being soft on terrorists who admit to killing nearly 3,000 people.

It all made for a head-spinning week at the U.S. military court in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where prosecutors, defense attorneys and various other government officials have been flying back and forth for years to litigate the 9/11 case. The nullification of the plea deals means that, at least for now, the case returns to a state of legal gridlock.

President Biden and the White House “played no role” in approving the settlements and only learned of them when they were announced by the Pentagon on Wednesday, according to a spokesperson for the National Security Council.

Fox News, unsurprisingly, led the cries of outrage.

Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal for Accused Sept. 11 Plottershttps://t.co/Ra3ymG6vmi

— Dave Schroeder (@daveschroeder) August 3, 2024