A court has ruled against Lloyd Austin's effort to throw out the plea deals reached for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants in the 9/11 attacks.
that would have the three men plead guilty to one of the deadliest attacks on the United States in exchange for being spared the possibility of the death penalty. The attacks by al-Qaida killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, and helped spur U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in what the George W. Bush administration called its war on terror.Monday night, according to the U.S. official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Supporters of the plea agreements see them as a way of resolving the legally troubled case against the men at the U.S. military commission at Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. Pretrial hearings for Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi have been underway for more than a decade.He cited the gravity of the 9/11 attacks in saying that as defense secretary, he should decide on any plea agreements that would spare the defendants the possibility of execution.
Austin now has the option of taking his effort to throw out the plea deals to the U.S. 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-held detainees at the Guantanamo military prison, a Tunisian man who U.S. authorities approved for transfer more than a decade ago.
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