Pentagon chief loses bid to reject Sept. 11, 2001, defendants’ plea deals
WASHINGTON — A military appeals court has ruled against Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s effort to throw out the plea deals reached for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two other defendants in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, a U.S. official said.
The decision puts back on track the agreements that would have the three men plead guilty to one of the deadliest attacks on the United States in exchange for being spared the possibility of the death penalty. The attacks by Al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, and helped spur U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in what the George W. Bush administration called its war on terrorism.
The military appeals court released its ruling Monday night, according to the U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Military prosecutors and defense attorneys for Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks, and two co-defendants reached the plea agreements after two years of government-approved negotiations. The deals were announced in the summer.
Defense Secretary Austin overrides plea agreements for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and co-defendants, reinstating death penalty cases.
Supporters of the plea agreements see them as a way of resolving the legally troubled case against the men at the U.S. military commission at Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. Pretrial hearings for Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi have been underway for more than a decade.
Much of the focus of pretrial arguments has been on how torture of the men while in CIA custody in the first years after their detention may taint the overall evidence in the case.
Within days of news of the plea deal in the summer, Austin issued a brief order saying he was nullifying them.
He cited the gravity of the Sept. 11 attacks in saying that as Defense secretary, he should decide on any plea agreements that would spare the defendants the possibility of execution.
Defense lawyers said Austin had no legal authority to reject a decision already approved by the Guantanamo court’s top authority and said the move amounted to unlawful interference in the case.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two others are expected to enter guilty pleas at the U.S. military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as soon as next week.
The military judge hearing the Sept. 11 case, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, had agreed that Austin lacked standing to throw out the plea bargains after they were underway. That had set up the Defense Department’s appeal to the military appeals court.
Austin now has the option of taking his effort to throw out the plea deals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Separately, the Pentagon said it had repatriated one of the longest-held detainees at the Guantanamo military prison, a Tunisian man whom U.S. authorities approved for transfer more than a decade ago.
Ridah bin Saleh al-Yazidi’s return to Tunisia leaves 26 men at Guantanamo. That’s down from a peak population of about 700 Muslim men detained abroad and brought to the prison in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Al-Yazidi’s repatriation leaves 14 men awaiting transfer to other countries after U.S. authorities waived any prosecution and cleared them as security risks.
The Defense Department will appeal a military judge’s ruling about plea agreements by three defendants in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, official says.
The Biden administration, pressed by rights groups to free remaining Guantanamo detainees held without charge, transferred out three other men this month. The U.S. says it is searching for suitable and stable countries willing to receive the remaining 14.
In a statement, the U.S. military said it had worked with authorities in Tunisia for the “responsible transfer” of Al-Yazidi. He had been a prisoner at Guantanamo since 2002, when the U.S. began sending Muslim detainees taken abroad there.
Al-Yazidi is the last of a dozen Tunisian men once held at Guantanamo.
Of those remaining at Guantanamo, seven — including Mohammed and his Sept. 11 co-defendants — face active cases. Two others of the 26 total have been convicted and sentenced by the military commission.
Knickmeyer writes for the Associated Press. AP reporter Tara Copp contributed from Washington.
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