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Washington: Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday overrode a plea agreement reached earlier this week for the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001, attacks and two other defendants, reinstating them as death penalty cases.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is seen shortly after his capture during a raid in Pakistan in 2003. Credit: AP
The move comes two days after the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, announced it had reached plea deals with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accused accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, in the attacks.
Letters sent to families of the nearly 3000 people killed in the al-Qaeda attacks said the plea agreement stipulated the three would serve life sentences.
Some families of the attack’s victims condemned the deal for cutting off any possibility of full trials or death penalties.
Republicans were quick to fault the Biden administration for the deal, although the White House said after it was announced it had no knowledge of it.
The attack on the World Trade Centre in New York on September 11, 2001.Credit: Getty
Austin wrote in an order released on Friday night that “in light of the significance of the decision,” he had decided that the authority to decide on accepting the plea agreements was his.
He nullified the agreements.
Mohammed, whom the US describes as the plotter of the attack that crashed hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, and the other two defendants had been expected to formally enter their pleas under the deal as soon as next week.