U.S. Appeals Court Overturns 9/11 Mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s Plea Deal, Reopens Door to Death Penalty.
A U.S. federal appeals court on Friday overturned a controversial plea agreement for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—the self-proclaimed mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks—reinstating the potential for a death penalty trial and reviving one of the most protracted legal proceedings in modern U.S. history, AFP reported.
The annulled agreement had initially been designed to remove capital punishment as an option for Mohammed and two alleged co-conspirators, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. However, the deal triggered strong backlash from families of 9/11 victims, who saw it as a premature concession in the pursuit of justice.
In response to the public outcry, then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin moved last year to nullify the plea deals, emphasizing that the American public and victims’ families “deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out in this case.”
The court’s ruling on Friday, delivered by Judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao, upheld Austin’s authority to revoke the agreements. “Austin acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment,” they wrote.
Crucially, the judges also vacated a military judge’s November 6, 2024 decision, which had upheld the validity of the pretrial agreements. In addition, they barred the military judge “from conducting hearings in which respondents would enter guilty pleas or take any other action pursuant to the withdrawn pretrial agreements.”
This development marks yet another legal pivot in a case that has already spanned more than two decades. The plea deals, briefly announced in July 2023, had been seen by some as a step toward resolving a case entangled in years of pretrial delays at Guantanamo Bay. Yet, within 48 hours of their public disclosure, Austin retracted them, reinforcing the government’s stance that a full trial remained essential.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, once regarded as a senior lieutenant to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was captured in Pakistan in March 2003. He spent the next three years in secret CIA detention facilities before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006, where he remains in custody.
As the legal process resets, the fate of one of the world’s most infamous terrorism cases once again hangs in balance—leaving victims’ families and the global public to wait even longer for what many consider overdue justice.
