Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin revoked the plea deals the Department of Defense reached with the accused masterminds of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, in a sudden reversal to the news this week in the long running case.
On Wednesday, July 31, the Department of Defense announced it had reached pretrial agreements with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, all of whom have been in prison in Guantanamo Bay awaiting a military trial that has yet to start. Only two days later on Aug. 2, Austin released a memo saying that he is withdrawing retired Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier’s authority. The memo, addressed to Escalier, who oversees the military court for Guantanamo Bay, says that instead Austin will “reserve such authority to [himself].”
“[R]esponsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009,” Austin wrote.
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According to reports, the plea agreement would have seen the three defendants accept life sentences in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. It came after two years of negotiations, according to the New York Times; the negotiations happened after Austin began serving as Secretary of Defense. Per Austin’s reversal, the military is now once again pursuing the death penalty against the three men.
Escallier remains in charge of the other military court cases at Guantanamo Bay.
The case now remains once again in legal limbo. The defendants’ trial has never started, with the entire matter held up in pre-trial limbo since 2008. That is due to legal fights over whether or not the military’s case against the defendants was valid after the use of torture on them at CIA facilities. Prior to the now-revoked plea agreement, an actual trial was not expected to start prior to 2026, more than two decades after the Sept. 11 attacks. It’s unclear if the previous schedule is still holding.