In a blow to a years-long effort to end one of the most high-profile military prosecutions in U.S. history, a federal appeals court has ruled that the Pentagon acted within its authority when it pulled the plug on plea deals that would have taken the death penalty off the table for the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks and two co-defendants.
The decision—split 2-1 by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals—means that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow detainees will not be allowed to plead guilty under the now-defunct agreements. The plea deals, once accepted by the convening authority of the Guantanamo war court, were later yanked by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after political backlash erupted, particularly from Republican lawmakers.
The majority opinion, penned jointly by Judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao, declared that Austin was fully within his rights to reverse course, emphasizing that the Secretary of Defense had “indisputable” legal power to intervene. Their message: the pursuit of public trials in military commissions outweighs the negotiated surrender of a guilty plea without execution.
“The Secretary determined that the families and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commission trials carried out,” the ruling stated.
The lone dissent came from Judge Robert Wilkins, who slammed the decision as “stunning” and argued that civilian judges were overstepping into military legal territory best left to courts with boots on the ground.
The rejected plea deals covered Mohammed, believed to be the architect of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, as well as co-defendants Mustafa al Hawsawi and Walid bin ‘Atash. All three have been held for years at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay—an institution born of post-9/11 policy and now deeply entangled in legal and political stalemates.
The Pentagon offered no comment. Lawyers for the detainees were either unreachable or weighing their next moves, including a potential appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Twenty-plus years after smoke and debris choked the skies of New York and Washington, the road to justice remains as gridlocked as ever—narrow, winding, and no clear end in sight.
