WASHINGTON — The Court of Military Appeals has ruled against Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s efforts to throw out plea deals agreed to for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants in the September 11, 2001 attacks. A U.S. official said the ruling had been appealed.
The decision puts back on track an agreement to plead guilty to one of the deadliest attacks on the United States in exchange for sparing the possibility of the death penalty. The September 11, 2001 al-Qaeda attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and helped spur the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, which the George W. Bush administration called the War on Terror.
The Court of Military Appeals announced the ruling Monday night, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Military prosecutors and defense attorneys for Mr. Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the attack, and his two co-defendants reached a plea deal after two years of government-approved negotiations. The deal was announced late last summer.
Supporters of the plea deal see it as a way to resolve the legally questionable case against the men on the U.S. military commission at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Pre-trial proceedings against Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi have been going on for more than a decade.
Much of the focus of pretrial arguments was on how the torture of the men while in CIA custody during the first few years of their detention could taint the overall evidence in the case. Ta.
Within days of news of the plea deal this summer, Austin issued a brief order voiding the plea deal.
Citing the gravity of the September 11 attacks, he said that as defense secretary he should decide on a plea deal that would avoid the defendant’s possible execution.
Defense attorneys argued that Austin had no legal authority to veto a decision already approved by top Guantanamo court authorities, and that the move amounted to an unlawful interference in the proceedings.
The military judge who heard the Sept. 11 case, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, agreed that Austin did not have standing to renege on a plea deal after it had begun. This prompted the Department of Defense to appeal to the Court of Military Appeals.
Austin now has the option of filing an effort to throw out the plea deal with the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. The Department of Defense did not respond to requests for comment.
Separately, the Pentagon announced it had repatriated one of the longest-held detainees at Guantanamo military prison, a Tunisian man whose transfer was approved by U.S. authorities more than a decade ago.
The return of Rida bin Saleh al-Yazidi to Tunisia leaves 26 people at Guantanamo. This is down from a peak of about 700 Muslim men detained overseas and taken to prison in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Al-Yazidi’s repatriation leaves 14 people awaiting extradition to other countries after U.S. authorities granted them immunity from prosecution and labeled them a security risk.
The Biden administration has been under pressure from human rights groups to release the remaining Guantanamo detainees held without charge, and transferred three others this month. The United States said it was looking for suitable, stable countries to host the remaining 14 countries.
The U.S. military said in a statement that it worked with Tunisian authorities toward the “responsible transfer” of al-Yazidi. He had been a prisoner at Guantanamo since 2002, when the United States began sending Muslim detainees there after being taken abroad.
Al Yazidi is the last of more than a dozen Tunisian men previously held at Guantanamo.
Of those remaining at Guantanamo, seven face ongoing cases, including Muhammad and his Sept. 11 co-defendants. The remaining two out of a total of 26 were convicted and sentenced by military commissions.
Nickmeier writes for The Associated Press. Associated Press reporter Tara Kopp contributed from Washington.
