US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin Cancels Plea Deals for 9/11 Plotters at Guantanamo Bay

Washington [US], August 3: United States Department of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has revoked plea deals agreed to earlier this week with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused, who have been accused of plotting the September 11 attacks and are being held at the military prison in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.

A statement by the Pentagon on Friday said without elaborating on the details that plea deals had been entered into. “Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements,” Austin wrote in a memo to Susan Escallier, who oversees the Pentagon’s Guantanamo war court.

“I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused…responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009,” Austin wrote.

Escallier had signed the pre-trial agreement of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, also referred to as KSM, on July 31, 2024. The memo written by Austin named four other defendants: Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak bin Attash, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. Plea deals had also been reached by two other detainees: Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.

According to a report in the New York Times, the three had agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy in exchange for a life sentence, instead of facing a trial that could lead to their executions.

Guantanamo Bay was set up in 2002 by then-US President George Bush to house foreign militant suspects following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is accused of masterminding the plot to fly hijacked commercial passenger aircraft into the World Trade Center in New York City and into the Pentagon. The 9/11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and plunged the United States into a war in Afghanistan.

Several Republican lawmakers, including House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson and US Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, strongly criticized the plea deals. “The Biden-Harris Administration’s cowardice in the face of terror is a national disgrace. The plea deal with terrorists, including those behind the 9/11 attacks, is a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice,” McConnell said in a post on X.