The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that plea deals had been reached with three suspects but withheld specifics. A U.S. official suggested these agreements likely involved guilty pleas in exchange for removing the death penalty.
On Friday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked these deals, taking the authority from Susan Escallier, who oversees the Pentagon’s Guantanamo war court, and assuming the responsibility himself. “Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements,” Austin wrote in a memo.
The plea deals had faced significant opposition from many Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the most well-known inmate at Guantanamo Bay, is accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people and led to the United States’ two-decade-long war in Afghanistan. Plea deals had also been reached with two other detainees: Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.
