Court Rejects Appeal to Cancel Plea Deal of Main Suspect in 9/11 Twin Tower Attack

Court Rejects Appeal to Cancel Plea Deal of Main Suspect in 9/11 Twin Tower Attack

Washington — A military appeals court has rejected the attempt by U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to cancel the plea deal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the main suspect in the 9/11 attacks, and two of his co-defendants.

This ruling restores the previously agreed-upon plea agreements for the three defendants, which propose their guilty plea for the 9/11 attack in exchange for being spared the death penalty. The al-Qaeda attack on September 11, 2001, killed nearly 3,000 people and led to U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The military appeals court issued its ruling on Monday night, confirmed by a U.S. official. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity and did not publicly discuss the matter.

The plea agreements for Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi were reached after two years of government-approved negotiations. These deals were announced last summer.

Supporters of the plea agreements see them as a way to resolve a legally troubled case being heard by the military commission at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Legal proceedings against Mohammed and his co-defendants have been underway for nearly a decade, with much of the focus on debates about the credibility of evidence due to their torture while in CIA custody.

Austin had issued an order some time ago to cancel these plea deals, arguing that given the severity of the 9/11 attacks, he, as Secretary of Defense, should have the authority to make such decisions.

Defense attorneys argued that Austin had no legal authority to cancel a decision already approved by the top authority of the Guantanamo court and that this was unlawful interference in the case. Military Judge Colonel Matthew McCall had expressed the same view and refused to annul Austin’s decision, stating that Austin had no standing in the matter.

Austin now has the option to take his attempt to cancel the plea deals to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon also reported that Ridah bin Saleh al-Yazidi, one of the longest-held detainees at the Guantanamo military prison, has been repatriated to his home country, Tunisia. Al-Yazidi had been held at Guantanamo since 2002, and U.S. authorities had approved his transfer over a decade ago.

Currently, 26 detainees remain at Guantanamo, down from a peak of about 700 Muslim detainees held after the September 11 attacks.