Military Court Reinstates Plea Deals Sparing 9/11 Defendants from Death Penalty

Dec 31, 2024, 05:47 PM

A US military appeals court has ruled that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acted improperly when he invalidated plea agreements for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, accused of orchestrating the September 11, 2001, attacks. The decision reinstates the plea deals, which would allow the three men to plead guilty to war crimes in exchange for being spared the death penalty. The ruling paves the way for potential plea hearings to proceed, more than two decades after the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The court found that Austin lacked the authority to rescind the agreements, as they had been signed by a senior Pentagon official prior to his intervention.