A US military judge reinstated the plea agreements for September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants, an official said Thursday, three months after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin canceled the agreements.
These agreements – which are understood to abolish the death penalty – have sparked anger among some relatives of victims of the 2001 attacks, and Austin said they and the American public deserve to see the defendants stand trial.
The American official said: “I can confirm that the military judge ruled that the pre-trial agreements of the three defendants are valid and enforceable.” Agence France-Presse On condition of anonymity.
Prosecutors have the opportunity to appeal Wednesday’s ruling, but it was not immediately clear whether they would do so.
“We are reviewing the decision and do not have anything further at this time,” Pentagon spokesman Major General Pat Rader said in a statement.
The guilty plea, along with Mohammed and two of his alleged accomplices – Walid bin Attash and Mustafa Al-Hawsawi – was announced in late July.
The decision appears to have moved their long-running cases toward resolution after years of stalling in pretrial maneuvers while the defendants remained detained at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba.
But Austin withdrew the agreements two days after announcing them, saying that the decision should be his own given its importance.
He then told reporters that “the families of the victims, our service members, and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials in this case.”
He tortures
Much of the legal debate surrounding the men’s cases has focused on whether they could be tried fairly after being systematically tortured by the CIA in the years after 9/11 — a thorny issue that plea agreements could have avoided.
“For too long, the United States has repeatedly defended its use of torture and unconstitutional military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay,” Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement Thursday.
Romero called plea agreements “the only workable solution” and said Austin was “going out of bounds” by rescinding them, adding: “As a state, we must move forward with a plea process and sentencing hearing that aims to give victim family members answers to their questions.”
Muhammad was considered one of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s most trusted and intelligent aides before his arrest in March 2003. He then spent three years in secret CIA prisons before arriving at Guantanamo in 2006.
The trainee engineer – who said he masterminded the September 11 attacks “from the ground up” – was involved in a series of major plots against the US, while studying at university.
Bin Attash, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, allegedly trained two of the hijackers who carried out the September 11 attacks, and his American investigators also said he admitted to buying explosives and recruiting members of the team that killed 17 sailors in an attack on the ship. USS Cole in 2000.
The United States used Guantanamo, an isolated naval base, to detain militants captured during the “war on terror” that followed the September 11 attacks in an attempt to prevent the defendants from claiming their rights under American law.
The facility held about 800 prisoners at its peak, but they have been slowly returned to other countries since then.
US President Joe Biden pledged before his election to try to close Guantanamo, but it remains open.