Pentagon head defends decision to revoke plea deal for 9/11 defendants

Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke for the primary time Tuesday on his determination to throw out a plea deal for the boys accused in al-Qaida’s 2001 assaults, saying that the depth of American losses and sacrifice on 9/11 demand that the navy fee trial goes forward.

“This wasn’t a call that I took calmly,” Austin informed reporters at an occasion with Australian officers in Annapolis, Maryland.

“However I’ve lengthy believed that the households of the victims, our service members, and the American public deserve the chance to see navy commissions, fee trials carried out” within the 9/11 case, he mentioned.

On the U.S. navy fee in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in the meantime, legal professionals and the choose within the case of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two different defendants who had additionally taken plea offers had been nonetheless coming to phrases with Austin’s shock order and its impact on efforts to resolve the greater than 20-year-old case.

Mohammed and a complete of 4 different defendants at Guantanamo are accused within the Sept. 11, 2001, assaults, utilizing hijacked passenger jets, that killed almost 3,000 individuals in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. A fourth defendant didn’t conform to the plea settlement, and a fifth defendant final 12 months was dominated mentally unfit to proceed going through trial.

Authorized problems, together with profound questions over how a lot the boys’s torture whereas in CIA custody within the first years after their seize has tainted the proof and the case itself, have helped drag out proceedings. The case stays in pretrial hearings after greater than a decade.

After about two years of plea negotiations, the Pentagon-appointed retired normal overseeing the navy fee final week accepted a plea discount struck by prosecutors and protection attorneys that might have spared Mohammed and the 2 others the chance of the demise penalty, in return for his or her responsible pleas.

Households of 9/11 victims supplied differing opinions, with some welcoming the decision and others saying they wished to see capital trials. Senior Republicans in Congress publicly lambasted the Biden administration for the plea discount.

An order from Austin made public late Friday, through which he mentioned he was revoking approval of the plea discount and personally assuming that decision-making authority within the 9/11 case, upended the deal.

“There’s not a day that goes by once I do not consider 9/11 and the People that had been murdered that day. Additionally those that died making an attempt to save lots of lives, and the troops and their households who gave a lot for this nation,” mentioned Austin, who commanded troops in Afghanistan within the aftermath of the Sept. 11 assaults, and was awarded a Silver Star for his service as a commander in the course of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

A few of the legal professionals and civil-rights organizations concerned within the Guantanamo Bay circumstances accuse Austin of bowing to political stress in overturning the plea deal, and are difficult the legality of Austin’s motion.

Open hearings are scheduled to renew Wednesday for the primary time since Austin’s order, and will reveal the protection’s response to the overriding of the plea discount.