The US Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, on Friday scrapped a plea agreement with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, just two days after the announcement of a deal that reportedly would have taken the death penalty off the table.
Deals with Mohammed and two alleged accomplices announced on Wednesday had appeared to have moved their long-running cases toward resolution but sparked anger among some relatives of those killed on Sept 11, 2001, as well as criticism
from leading Republican politicians.
“I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused […] responsibility for such a decision should rest with me,” Austin said in a memorandum addressed to Susan Escallier, who oversaw the case.
“I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024 in the above-referenced case,” the memo said.
The cases against the 9/11 defendants have been bogged down in pre-trial maneuverings for years, while the accused remained held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba.
The New York Times reported this week that Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi had agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy in exchange for a life sentence, instead of facing a trial that could lead to their executions.
Much of the legal jousting surrounding the men’s cases has focused on whether they could be tried fairly after having undergone methodical torture at the hands of the CIA in the years after 9/11.
The plea agreements would have avoided that thorny issue, but they also sparked sharp criticism from political opponents of President Joe Biden’s administration.
Republican lawmaker Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, sent a letter to Austin that said the deals were “unconscionable”, while House Speaker Mike Johnson said they were a “slap in the face” to the families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the September 11 attacks.
And Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, described the agreements as a “sweetheart deal with 9/11 terrorists”, saying during a campaign rally: “We need a president who kills terrorists, not negotiates with them.”—Agencies
