Appeals Court Temporarily Blocks 9/11 Mastermind’s Guilty Plea After US Government Request

Flowers on names of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack during the annual 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City on Sept. 11, 2024. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

The man accused of masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks will no longer plead guilty as planned on Jan. 10 after an appeals court agreed to temporarily pause proceedings at the request of the federal government.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was due to deliver his guilty plea before a military commission courtroom at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The guilty plea is part of an agreement reached last year following years of negotiations between the Department of Defense (DOD) and lawyers for Mohammed—who is believed to have masterminded the attacks—as well as two other Sept. 11 defendants: Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin' Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.

Entering the guilty plea would have ensured Mohammed and his co-defendants avoided a death penalty trial and instead received sentences of up to life in prison without parole.

The federal government is now pushing to block the plea agreement from going ahead, with the Department of Justice arguing in a motion filed Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that enforcing the agreement would cause “irreparable” harm to the government and public.

A three-judge appeals panel agreed on Jan. 9 to put Mohammed’s guilty plea on hold while it considers the government’s arguments but stressed the ruling is not final.

The court scheduled some of the next steps for Jan. 22.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed and thousands more injured in the terror attacks on New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a Pennsylvania field carried out by al-Qaeda.

Austin Seeks to Withdraw Plea Deals

Mohammed and his co-defendants have been charged with murder, conspiracy, terrorism, attacking civilians, attacking civilian objects, hijacking or hazarding a vessel or aircraft, and destruction of property.

Yet the case has been bogged down by legal and logistical challenges, in part due to the torture Mohammed and other defendants endured in CIA custody, which has raised questions about whether or not their later statements can be used in court.

In its motion with the appeals court, the Justice Department highlighted the grievous nature of the defendants’ crimes.

The department said Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin opposes the plea deals negotiated by the DOD and has attempted to have them revoked, stating a decision on the death penalty in an attack as grave as Sept. 11 should only be made by him.

“Respondents are charged with perpetrating the most egregious criminal act on American soil in modern history—the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” the department wrote in the motion. “The military commission judge intends to enforce pretrial plea agreements that will deprive the government and the American people of a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and the possibility of capital punishment, despite the fact that the Secretary of Defense has lawfully withdrawn those agreements.”

This courtroom drawing by artist Janet Hamlin and reviewed by the U.S. military shows Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (C) and co-defendant Walid Bin Attash (L) attending a pre-trial session at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, on Dec. 8, 2008. Janet Hamlin/AP Photo

Austin’s intervention was overruled by a Guantanamo judge and a military review panel, prompting the government to file the motion with the District of Columbia federal appeals court this week.

Defense lawyers for Mohammed and the others have argued the plea deals are already in effect and that Austin lacks the legal authority to throw them out after the fact. They have further criticized the government’s two decades of “fitful” and “negligent” mishandling of the case.

While the appeals court agreed to put Mohammed’s guilty plea proceeding on hold, it did not rule on whether or not Austin has the power to reverse the plea agreements reached with Mohammed and other defendants.

The deals negotiated by the DOD were approved by military prosecutors and the Pentagon’s senior official for Guantanamo in late July 2024 and also obligate the defendants to answer any lingering questions that families of the victims have about the attacks.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.