US cancels plea agreement with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others

The plea agreement, which was reversed for two other defendants as well, had been confirmed just two days before it was overridden.

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The military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba had announced that the official appointed to oversee the war court, retired brigadier general Susan Escallier, had finalised a plea deal with the prime accused Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his two alleged accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.

The families of nearly 3,000 people killed in the Al-Qaeda attacks were sent letters informing them that the three accused would serve life sentences.

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In his order axing the plea deal on Friday, defence secretary Austin wrote, “in light of the significance of the decision,” he had decided that he was authorised to take a final decision in the case and nullify Escallier’s judgement.

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Families of victims of the terrorist attack had condemned the earlier deal for taking away a possibility of a full trial or death penalty. Many Republicans blamed the Biden administration, who responded saying they had no knowledge of the inner workings of the deal.

Mohammed, and the two others, accused of being involved in hijacking passenger planes and crashing them into the World Trade Centre in 2001, were supposed to enter their guilty pleas next week.

Out of two others who were accused of involvement as well, one is negotiating a plea deal while the other has been deemed unfit to stand trial.

The U.S. military commission in charge of the cases of five defendants has been stuck in pre-trial hearings and other preliminary court action since 2008. This is largely due to the torture suffered by the five while in CIA custody.

J. Wells Dixon, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights who has represented the defendants accused Austin of “bowing to political pressure and pushing some victim family members over an emotional cliff” by scrapping the plea deals.

Lawyers have been trying to negotiate a resolution to the case for about 18 months. President Joe Biden blocked a proposed plea bargain in the case last year, when he refused to offer solitary confinement and trauma care to the defendants for the torture they suffered under the CIA.