A US appeals court has overturned a plea deal for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which would have eliminated the possibility of a death sentence and ended the long-running legal saga surrounding his case, AFP reported, quoted by dariknews.bg.
The agreement sparked discontent among some relatives of the victims of the 2001 attacks, and then-US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin took steps to overturn it last year, saying that both they and the American public deserve to see the defendants brought to justice.
„Austin acted within his legal authority and we refuse to question his "judgment," wrote Justices Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao.
The agreements with Mohammed, as well as with two alleged accomplices — Walid bin Atash and Mustafa al-Hausawi — were announced in late July last year.
The decision appeared to be a step toward resolving their cases after years of being bogged down in procedural disputes while the defendants were held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
But Austin withdrew the agreements two days after they were announced, stressing that he should make the final decision given the significance of the case.
He later said that “the families of the victims, our service members, and the American public deserve the opportunity to see a military trial in this case“.
A military judge ruled in November that the agreements were valid and binding, but the government appealed that decision.
The appeals judges overturned “the military judge's order of November 6, 2024, which prevented the Secretary of Defense from withdrawing the plea agreements.
They also prohibited the military judge from "conducting hearings at which defendants would plead guilty or take any action based on withdrawn plea agreements."
Much of the legal controversy surrounding the 9/11 defendants' cases has centered on whether they could be tried fairly after being tortured by the CIA—a complex issue that the agreements would have avoided.
Mohammed was considered one of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's most trusted lieutenants until his capture in March 2003 in Pakistan. He then spent three years in secret CIA prisons before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.
The trained engineer — who has claimed to have orchestrated the 9/11 attacks “from A to Z“ — was involved in a series of major plots against the US, where he graduated from university.
The United States used Guantanamo Bay, an isolated naval base, to hold fighters captured during the “War on Terror“ that began after the 9/11 attacks, with the aim of denying them the opportunity to claim rights under US law.
At its peak, around 800 people were held there, but the number has gradually declined as prisoners have been transferred to other countries. Today, only a small portion of them remain in prison.
Source: dariknews.bg