The agreements reached in summer could see the suspects acknowledging responsibility for the attacks in exchange for avoiding the death penalty
A military appeals court decided on Monday that US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin could not withdraw plea deals for the alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and two other defendants in the case, the US media has said.
The development was reported on Tuesday by several outlets, including AP, the New York Times and CBS News, who all cited unnamed US officials. The Pentagon has not yet officially commented on the matter.
The Department of Defense has now filed a motion to delay the plea hearings until January 27 in order to consult the Department of Justice on whether to challenge the ruling in the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, according to the media. The hearing for Mohammed is scheduled to take place next week.
The plea deals, which had been agreed in late July after two years of negotiations, could see the three suspects pleading guilty to the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for the possibility of the death penalty being replaced by life in prison.
Mohammed and two of his alleged associates also agreed to answer questions from the families of the victims about their motives and roles in the attacks.
But, in early August, Austin announced that he was withdrawing the plea deals with the three detainees, held in Guantanamo Bay prison. The Defense Secretary argued in a memo that “in light of the significance” of the pretrial agreements, “responsibility for such a decision should rest with me.”
Defense lawyers reacted by blaming Austin for unlawful interference in the case and insisting that the Pentagon chief had no legal authority to revoke the deals that had already been approved by the Guantanamo court’s top authority.
Their claims were backed by Air Force Colonel Matthew McCall, the military judge overseeing the case, who ruled in November that Austin exceeded his authority when he withdrew the agreements. It was McCall’s decision that promoted the Department of Defense to go to the military appeals court.
Mohammed and the two other men were captured in 2003 and spent time in several secret CIA prisons before being moved to Guantanamo.
They were initially set to stand trial in January 2021, but it was repeatedly postponed as defense lawyers argued that the use of torture against the suspects rendered much of the evidence against them inadmissible in a court of law.
