The US on Friday revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin relieved the senior official in charge of military commissions, Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, from her oversight of the case.
The plea agreement would have seen the suspect avoid the death sentence.
In a memo released Friday evening, Austin said, “In light of the significance of the decision, I have determined that the authority to make a decision on accepting the plea agreements is mine.”
He added, “I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024 in the above-referenced case.”
The three agreements were signed with Mohammed and two alleged accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, held at the Guantanamo Bay military base in Cuba.
The deals sparked anger among family members of the nearly 3,000 people who died in the Sept. 11, 2001 when hearing that the agreements would exempt the defendants from the death penalty.
In his order, Austin said he relieved Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, from her oversight of the case. Escallier oversaw the cases in her capacity as the Department of Defense's Convening Authority for Military Commissions.
“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements...,” Austin wrote in his memo.
