On Friday, the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C, rejected a deal that would have allowed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused of masterminding the 9/11, to plead guilty, thus sparing him the risk of being executed for the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The decision thwarts the attempt to end more than two decades of military proceedings, plagued by legal and logistical problems. The deal, negotiated over two years and approved a year ago by military prosecutors and a senior Pentagon official for Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, called for life imprisonment without parole for Mohammed and two co-defendants, the former being accused of directing the plan to crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
In recent months, relatives of the September 11 victims have been divided over the possible plea bargain. Some opposed it, arguing that a trial was the best way to obtain justice and more information about the attacks, while others considered it the best solution to conclude the case.
The plea bargain would have required the defendants to answer any questions from the victims’ families about the attacks. However, in the summer of 2024, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin put a stop to it. “The Secretary of Defense indisputably had legal authority to withdraw from the agreements”, Friday’s decision reads.
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Muhammed was imprisoned in Guantanamo for almost two decades. The plea bargain would have meant life imprisonment for him and two of his al-Qaeda lieutenants, Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawasawi, sparing them the death penalty. The three defendants had agreed to plead guilty to all charges, including the murder of 2,976 people.
The defendants’ lawyers argued that the agreement was already legally in force and that Austin, who had served under President Joe Biden, had intervened too late to try to overturn it. A military judge in Guantanamo and a military appeals panel agreed with the defense attorneys.
However, in a 2-1 vote, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Austin had acted within his authority.
“The allegations against the respondents set forth their extensive roles as the counselors, commanders, and conspirators in the murder of 2,976 people, the injury of numerous civilians and military personnel, and the destruction of property worth tens of billions of dollars,” the judges said in Friday’s ruling.
