WASHINGTON (TND) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked a plea deal reached with the accused mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks and two other accomplices.
The Pentagon released a memorandum relieving the senior Defense Department official responsible for military commissions of her oversight of the case against Khaild Shaikh Mohammed, which also effectively put the death penalty back in place.
“In light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the above-referenced case, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me,” he wrote in the document. “Effective immediately, I hereby withdraw your authority in the above-referenced case to enter into a pre-trial agreement and reserve such authority to myself.”
Brig. Gen Susan Escallier signed a pretrial agreement with Mohammed and two other alleged co-conspirators that exchanged guilty pleas for sentences of life in prison, taking the death penalty off the table as a possible outcome. By relieving Escallier of her authority over the case, Austin takes direct oversight of the case and has canceled the plea deal.
The decision to remove the death sentence as a possible outcome drew swift outrage from some of the families of the nearly 3,000 people who were killed in New York City, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. Republicans in Congress were also adamantly opposed to the plea agreement.
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