The court rejected military efforts to rescind the deals offered to three men allegedly involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The U.S. Department of Defense’s appeals court has turned down the Pentagon’s attempt to rescind the plea deals for the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and several alleged accomplices, paving the way for the men to avoid the death penalty.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin did not have the authority to rescind the deals, a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review said in the Dec. 30
ruling.
Even if Austin did have the authority, he waited too long to act as lawyers for the alleged attackers had already started meeting requirements in their pretrial plea agreements, the panel said.
The Pentagon had
announced on July 31 that Susan Escallier, the official whom Austin appointed to lead the military court that is handling the 9/11 trials, signed off on the agreements with Khalid Shaikh (Sheikh) Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi. Mohammed is accused of masterminding the 9/11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 in the United States, with help from the two others.
“In exchange for the removal of the death penalty as a possible punishment, these three accused have agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offenses, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet,” a
letter from military prosecutors to the families of victims of the attack said.
Austin
said on Aug. 2 that given the case’s significance, he would be in charge of it. He withdrew Escallier’s authority and the pretrial agreements.
U.S. Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, a judge,
ruled in November that Austin lacked the authority to withdraw the agreements. Even if he had the authority, it was too late to act, according to McCall.
“If an accused begins performance of the terms of a PTA [pretrial agreement], the convening authority loses the right to withdraw from the deal,” the military judge wrote at the time.
The Pentagon appealed the ruling, leading to Monday’s decision.
The panel of judges said that Austin could replace Escallier as the convening authority for the case, even without taking all of her responsibilities. However, they said that the intervention in the current case “is without precedent” and that based on a ruling in a different case, Austin cannot order the withdrawal of the deals for Mohammad, Attash, and Hawsawi.
Escallier could withdraw the agreements, but only until the men started to meet the requirements, according to the panel.
Austin can withdraw Escallier’s authority to approve future agreements in the case, the judges said, in a partial victory for the military.
