US Defence Secretary loses bid to reject 9/11 plea deals

A military appeals court has ruled against US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s bid to throw out the plea deals reached for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants in the September 11 terror attacks, a US official said.

The decision puts back on track the agreements that allow the three men to plead guilty to one of the deadliest attacks ever on the United States in exchange for being spared the possibility of the death penalty.

The attacks by al-Qaida killed nearly 3,000 people on September 11 2001, and helped spur US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq in what the George W Bush administration called its war on terror.

The military appeals court released its ruling on Monday night, according to the US official.

Military prosecutors and defence lawyers for Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, and two co-defendants reached the plea agreements after two years of government-approved negotiations. The deals were announced late last summer.

Supporters of the plea agreement see it as a way of resolving the legally troubled case against the men at the US military commission at Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba.

Pretrial hearings for Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi have been under way for more than a decade.

Much of the focus of pre-trial arguments has been on how torture of the men while in CIA custody in the first years after their detention may taint the overall evidence in the case.

Within days of news of the plea deal this summer, Mr Austin issued a brief order saying he was nullifying them.

He cited the gravity of the 9/11 attacks in saying that as Defence Secretary, he should decide on any plea agreements that would spare the defendants the possibility of execution.

Defence lawyers said Mr Austin had no legal authority to reject a decision already approved by the Guantanamo court’s top authority and said the move amounted to unlawful interference in the case.

The military judge hearing the 9/11 case, Air Force Col Matthew McCall, had agreed that Mr Austin lacked standing to throw out the plea bargains after they were under way.

That had set up the US Defence Department’s appeal to the military appeals court.

Mr Austin now has the option of taking his effort to throw out the plea deals to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. There was no immediate word from the Pentagon on the next move.