Pentagon chief loses bid to reject 9/11 plea deals

A military man The appeals court has ruled against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s effort to throw out plea deals reached by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants in the 9/11 attacks, an official said american

The decision puts deals back on track that would see the three men plead guilty to one of the deadliest attacks in the United States in exchange for being spared the possibility of the death penalty. Al-Qaeda attacks killed nearly 3,000 people September 11, 2001and helped spur the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in what the George W. Bush administration called its war on terror.

The military appeals court issued its ruling late Monday, according to the US official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Military prosecutors and defense lawyers for Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the attacks, and two co-defendants reached the plea deals after two years of government-approved negotiations. The deals were announced late last summer.

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Supporters of the plea deals see them as a way to resolve the legally troubled case against the men from the US military commission in Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. The preliminary hearings for Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi have been ongoing for more than a decade.

Much of the focus of pre-trial arguments has been on the torture of the men inside Custody of the CIA in the first years after their arrest can contaminate the overall evidence of the case.

Just days after news of the plea deal broke this summer, Austin issued a brief order saying it was overturning them.

He cited the seriousness of the 9/11 attacks in saying that, as defense secretary, he would have to rule on any plea deal that spared the defendants the possibility of execution.

Defense lawyers said Austin did not have the legal authority to reject a decision already approved by the top court at Guantánamo and said the move amounted to illegal interference in the case.

The military judge hearing the 9/11 case, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, had agreed that Austin had no right to reject plea deals after they were in place. This had created the Defense Department’s appeal to the court of military appeals.

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Austin now has the option of pursuing his effort to reject the plea deals before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

separately, the pentagon said it had repatriated one of the longest-serving detainees at the military prison at Guantánamo, a Tunisian man who US authorities approved for transfer more than a decade ago.

The return of Ridah bin Saleh al-Yazidi to Tunisia leaves 26 men in Guantánamo. That’s down from the peak population of about 700 Muslim men arrested overseas and taken to prison in the years after the 9/11 attacks.

Al-Yazidi’s repatriation leaves 14 men awaiting transfer to other countries after US authorities waived any prosecution and declared them security risks.

The Biden administration, pressed by rights groups to release the remaining Guantanamo detainees without charge, transferred three other men this month. The US says it is looking for suitable and stable countries willing to receive the remaining 14.

In a statement, the US military said it had worked with Tunisian authorities for the “responsible transfer” of al-Yazidi. He had been a prisoner at Guantánamo since 2002, when the US began sending him Muslim detainees brought there abroad.

Al-Yazidi is the last of a dozen Tunisian men detained at Guantánamo.

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Of those remaining at Guantánamo, seven, including Mohammed and his 9/11 co-defendants, face active cases. Another two of the total 26 have been convicted and sentenced by the military commission.