The United States on Friday revoked a plea deal put forward by three 9/11 attack plotters who are pending trial in Guantanamo Bay. The revocation of the plea deal means that these men will be eligible to be sentenced to death by the court.
The decision came just days after the 9/11 attack plotters Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, among two others, including Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, had filed for a plea deal.
But on Friday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin scrapped the deal after families of the September 11, 2001, attack victims created an uproar over reports that the plea deal involved doing away with the death penalty and with pressure built by political opponents.
"I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused... responsibility for such a decision should rest with me," Austin said in a memorandum to Susan Escallier, who is overseeing the case.
"I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024 in the above-referenced case," the memo said as it confirmed that the deal had been offered.
The deal had been presented to help move along the cases against Mohammed, Attash and al-Hawsawi, which have been pending in the pre-trial phase for nearly 20 years. The suspects remain incarcerated at the US-controlled Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. The deal would have seen the men plead guilty to conspiracy charges if the death sentence was dropped in favour of life sentences after the trial.
The US wanted the plea deal because it would have allowed the US government to skirt past the legal complication of trying these men fairly after they had undergone methodical torture at the hands of the CIA when they were held for years at offshore black sites in the aftermath of 9/11.
But with the incumbent Democrats heading into a tough election race against Republican Donald Trump, it seems the government has gotten cold feet over potential criticism from political opponents of US President Joe Biden's administration.
Mohammed was regarded as Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden's most trusted and intelligent lieutenant before his March 2003 capture in Pakistan. He then spent three years in secret CIA prisons before arriving at Guantanamo in 2006. Trained as an engineer in the US, Mohammed had allegedly masterminded the 9/11 attacks "from A to Z" -- and was involved in a string of major plots against the United States, including the 1993 trade centre attacks.
Attash, a Saudi of Yemeni origin, allegedly trained two of the hijackers who carried out the September 11 attacks. He allegedly confessed to CIA interrogators that he bought the explosives and recruited members of the team that killed 17 sailors in an attack on the USS Cole.
Hawsawi is suspected of managing the financing for the 9/11 attacks. He was arrested in Pakistan on March 1, 2003, and was also held in secret prisons before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.