A plea deal reached this week with the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, along with two of his alleged accomplices, has been withdrawn, the Pentagon announced Friday.
In a PMDefense Minister Lloyd Austin said the “three pretrial agreements” approved with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad – the man accused of planning the attacks – and Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, had been revoked.
The memo was addressed to retired Brigadier General Susan Escallier, the convening authority for the military commissions that oversaw the affair. Austin wrote that he withdrew her “authority” in the case, reserving “such authority to myself”.
The military commission in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Wednesday released letters sent to families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the al-Qaida attacks, saying the plea agreement stipulated that the three would serve life sentences.
Some families of the victims of the attacks condemned the deal for cutting off any chance of full trials and possible death sentences. Republicans were quick to blame the Biden administration for the deal, although the White House said after it was announced that it had no knowledge of it.
In voiding the plea agreement, Austin wrote in the order that “in light of the significance of the decision” he had decided that the authority to make the decision to approve the plea deals was his.
Mohammed and the other defendants had been expected to formally enter their pleas under the agreement as soon as next week.
United States Military Commission monitor the cases of five defendants in the 9/11 attacks have been stuck in interrogations and other pretrial proceedings since 2008. The torture the defendants endured while in CIA custody has slowed the cases and left the possibility of full trials and convictions still uncertain, in part because of the inadmissibility of evidence linked to the torture.
Earlier Friday, the Republican-led House Oversight and Accountability Committee notified it launched an investigation into whether the White House was involved in the deal.