US Defence Secretary Austin revokes plea deal for Sept 11 suspects

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba – US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Aug 2 relieved the overseer of the war court at Guantanamo Bay and revoked

a plea agreement reached this week with the accused mastermind of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks

and two alleged accomplices.

The Pentagon announced the decision with the release of a memorandum. The senior official at the US Defence Department responsible for military commissions was relieved of her oversight of the capital case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his alleged accomplices for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.

The overseer, retired Brigadier-General Susan Escallier, signed a pre-trial agreement on July 31 with Khalid, Walid Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi that exchanged guilty pleas for sentences of at most life in prison.

In taking away the authority, Mr Austin assumed direct oversight of the case and cancelled the agreement, effectively reinstating it as a death penalty case. He left Brig-Gen Escallier in the role of oversight of Guantanamo’s other cases.

Because of the stakes involved, the “responsibility for such a decision should rest with me”, Mr Austin said in an order released by the Pentagon late on Aug 2.

“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024.”

Brig-Gen Escallier’s approval of the agreement that was reached between prosecutors and the defendants over two years of negotiations had appeared to resolve the case, which had been mired in pre-trial hearings since 2012.

Prosecutors in the case had alerted family members of those killed in the attacks to the decision, some of whom expressed disappointment and anger that a death sentence was no longer possible. Republican leaders had done so too.

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, a long-time Republican leader, called the plea agreement “a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice”.

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas called the deal “disgraceful and an insult to the victims of the attacks”, and introduced legislation intended to nullify it.

But Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic chair of the Judiciary Committee, hailed the plea agreement as a “small measure of justice and finality to the victims and their loved ones”.

A senior Pentagon official said the decision was the US Defence Secretary’s alone and that the White House had no involvement. The official said Mr Austin had never supported a plea deal and wanted the military commission trials to proceed.

Much of the legal jousting surrounding the men’s cases has focused on whether they could be tried fairly after having undergone methodical torture at the hands of the Central Intelligence Agency in the years after the Sept 11 attacks, reported AFP.

Mr Austin’s action was met with disbelief by lawyers at Guantanamo Bay who were preparing for a hearing, possibly as soon as Aug 7, for the judge in the case, Colonel Matthew McCall, to question Khalid about whether he understood and voluntarily agreed with the plea.

“If the Secretary of Defence issued such an order, I am respectfully and profoundly disappointed that after all of these years, the government still has not learnt the lessons of this case and the mischief that results from disregarding due process and fair play,” said Mr Gary Sowards, Khalid’s lead defence counsel. NYTIMES