A U.S. military appeals court has rejected Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin's challenge to a possible plea bargain with the masterminds of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York. The terms of the deal would have commuted their death sentences to life in prison if they pleaded guilty, The Washington Post reported.
According to the court's decision, Austin has the authority to prohibit judges from making plea agreements with defendants on behalf of the U.S. government, but he cannot overturn such deals after the fact. The court noted that the defendants have already pleaded guilty, which limits the possibility of further legal proceedings against them.
A senior Pentagon source told the publication in a confidential conversation that the military and the Justice Department are studying this case and possible options for action. On Tuesday, the US government filed a request to postpone the guilty plea hearing of the mastermind of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, from January 6 to January 27, to give American officials “an opportunity to decide whether to seek a reduction in [the sentence“.
The New York Times reported earlier, citing Pentagon sources, that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two of his accomplices had agreed to plead guilty if their death sentences were commuted to life in prison. All three are being held at the US base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The Pentagon chief later said he would personally review the deal with the three defendants and canceled the pre-trial agreement reached without his knowledge.
On January 20, 2025, the newly elected US President Donald Trump takes office. His position on Guantanamo Bay remains unclear - during his first term, he did not allow the facility to be closed. Trump has also blocked the repatriation of some of the prisoners held there, explaining that returning them to their homeland would be a sign of weakness in the face of terrorism.
On September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists from the Al Qaeda group hijacked four passenger planes in the United States. Two of them brought down the World Trade Center towers, the tallest buildings in New York at the time, a third crashed into the Pentagon building in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed near the town of Shanksville, Pennsylvania.