2024-08-07 10:31:37
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday canceled earlier plea deals with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and two of his accomplices who are being held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba.
Reuters reports this.
Austin relieved Susan Escalier, who was in charge of the Pentagon’s military courts at Guantanamo, of her authority to negotiate plea bargains and assumed that responsibility himself.
“I am immediately terminating the three plea agreements,” Austin said.
Many Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, have sharply criticized the deals.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is one of Guantanamo’s most notorious prisoners. He is accused of conspiring to fly hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon. The September 11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people and led to the U.S.’s two-decade war in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon announced the plea agreements on Wednesday, but did not provide details. A U.S. official said the agreements likely included admissions of guilt in exchange for the death penalty being lifted. In addition to Mohammed, the other defendants who entered into plea agreements were Walid Mohammed Salih Mubarak Bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi.
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