A military appeals court has denied Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s attempt to overturn plea agreements for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants in the 9/11 attacks, a U.S. official has confirmed.
The ruling allows the plea deals to move forward, in which the three men would admit to their roles in the September 11, 2001, attacks in exchange for being spared the death penalty. Those attacks, carried out by al-Qaida, killed nearly 3,000 people and prompted U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq under the Bush administration’s war on terror.
The court’s decision, issued Monday night, was confirmed by a U.S. official speaking anonymously, as they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
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The plea agreements, reached after two years of negotiations between military prosecutors and defense attorneys, had been announced last summer. They represent a potential resolution to the long-delayed legal proceedings at the U.S. military commission in Guantanamo Bay, where pretrial hearings for Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi have dragged on for more than a decade.
The case has been mired in legal challenges, including disputes over the admissibility of evidence tainted by the CIA’s use of torture during the defendants’ initial detention.
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Austin had attempted to nullify the agreements shortly after their announcement, arguing that the gravity of the 9/11 attacks warranted his direct involvement in approving any plea deals that would spare the death penalty. However, defense lawyers contested Austin’s authority to intervene, calling it unlawful interference in the judicial process.
Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, the military judge overseeing the case, ruled that Austin lacked the legal standing to overturn the plea agreements once they were approved. This prompted the Pentagon to appeal the decision, which has now been upheld by the military appeals court.
Austin may still pursue the matter further by appealing to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Pentagon has not yet commented on the court’s ruling.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced the repatriation of Ridah bin Saleh al-Yazidi, a Tunisian detainee held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. Al-Yazidi, one of the longest-held prisoners at the facility, had been cleared for transfer over a decade ago. His return to Tunisia reduces the Guantanamo detainee population to 26, down from a peak of around 700 in the years following the 9/11 attacks.
Of the remaining detainees, 14 have been cleared for transfer, seven – including Mohammed and his co-defendants – face active cases, and two have been convicted and sentenced by the military commission. The Biden administration continues efforts to transfer detainees cleared for release, working to identify stable countries willing to accept them.
