US military judge reinstates 9/11 mastermind plea deal

A US military judge has reinstated plea agreements for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants, an official said Thursday, three months after the deals were scrapped by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The agreements — which are understood to take the death penalty off the table — had triggered anger among some relatives of victims of the 2001 attacks, and Austin has said that both they and the American public deserved to see the defendants stand trial.

"I can confirm that the military judge has ruled that the pretrial agreements for the three accused are valid and enforceable," the US official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The prosecution has the opportunity to appeal Wednesday's ruling, but it was not immediately clear if they would do so.

Pentagon spokesperson Major General Pat Ryder said in a statement that "we are reviewing the decision and don't have anything further at this time."

The plea deals with Mohammed and two alleged accomplices — Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi — were announced in late July.

The decision appeared to have moved their long-running cases toward resolution after years of being bogged down in pre-trial maneuverings while the defendants remained held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba.

But Austin withdrew the agreements two days after they were announced, saying the decision should be his given its significance.

He subsequently told journalists that "the families of the victims, our service members and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out in this case."

Torture

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 CIA in the years after 9/11 — a thorny issue that the plea agreements would have avoided.

"For too long, the US has repeatedly defended its use of torture and unconstitutional military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay," Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement on Thursday.

Romero described the plea agreements as "the only practical solution" and said Austin "stepped out of bounds" by scrapping them, adding: "As a nation, we must move forward with the plea process and a sentencing hearing that is intended to give victim family members answers to their questions."

Mohammed was regarded as one of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's most trusted and intelligent lieutenants before his March 2003 capture. He then spent three years in secret CIA prisons before arriving at Guantanamo in 2006.

The trained engineer — who has said he masterminded the 9/11 attacks "from A to Z" — was involved in a string of major plots against the United States, where he had attended university.

Bin Attash, a Saudi of Yemeni origin, allegedly trained two of the hijackers who carried out the September 11 attacks, and his US interrogators also said he confessed to buying the explosives and recruiting members of the team that killed 17 sailors in an attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

The United States used Guantanamo, an isolated naval base, to hold militants captured during the "War on Terror" that followed the September 11 attacks in a bid to keep the defendants from claiming rights under US law.

The facility held roughly 800 prisoners at its peak, but they have since slowly been repatriated to other countries.

US President Joe Biden pledged before his election to try to shut down Guantanamo, but it remains open.