A sharply divided federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled Friday to invalidate a plea agreement that would have permitted Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, to avoid the death penalty by admitting guilt.
This ruling overturns a proposed resolution to the long-delayed military proceedings that have stretched over twenty years, burdened by legal setbacks and procedural difficulties. With the court’s decision, the complex and drawn-out process to prosecute the architect of one of the most horrific terror attacks on American soil remains far from over.
The plea arrangement—hammered out over a two-year period and formally endorsed by military prosecutors and the Pentagon’s lead Guantanamo official in 2023—would have sentenced Mohammed and two fellow defendants to life imprisonment without any chance of parole.
Mohammed faces charges for orchestrating the plan that led to hijacked commercial jets being flown into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, with a fourth crashing into a Pennsylvania field after passengers intervened.
As part of the proposed deal, the accused were expected to provide answers to unresolved questions that continue to haunt the victims’ families even decades after the attacks.
However, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rejected the agreement, asserting that the gravity of the September 11 attacks required that any decision about whether the death penalty should be pursued fall under the direct responsibility of the defense secretary himself.
Defense lawyers maintained that the agreement had already gone into effect and that Austin, serving in the Biden administration at the time, acted beyond the appropriate window to rescind it. Their position was supported by both the military judge overseeing the case at Guantanamo and a military appeals body.
Despite that, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, determined that Austin was within his legal rights and criticized the military judge for an erroneous interpretation of the law.
The court had earlier issued a temporary freeze on the agreement while it reviewed the appeal—a case initiated by the Biden administration and later continued under President Donald Trump.
“Having properly assumed the convening authority, the Secretary determined that the ‘families and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out.’ The Secretary acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment,” Judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao wrote.
Judge Millett was nominated by Barack Obama, while Judge Rao received her appointment from Trump.
Dissenting from the majority, Judge Robert Wilkins—also appointed by Obama—argued, “The government has not come within a country mile of proving clearly and indisputably that the Military Judge erred.”
{Matzav.com}