Defense secretary revokes plea deal with accused 9/11 plotters

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with three accused plotters of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The previous agreements exchanged guilty pleas from the men for sentences of, at most, life in prison.

Austin relieved the senior official in charge of military commissions, Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, from her oversight of the case, saying in an order released Friday evening, “in light of the significance of the decision … responsibility for such a decision should rest with me.” The cancellation of the agreement effectively makes it a capital case again.

The previous plea agreements with the Pentagon, announced Wednesday, had been a partial resolution for a case that had dragged on for almost 20 years, and was unlikely ever to go to trial.

Reaction to the plea deals had been mixed; While some victim family members saw them as closure, many family members of the nearly 3,000 people who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, want the 9/11 defendants put to death.

Brett Eagleson, who was 15 when his father died in the World Trade Center collapse, sent NPR a statement issued by a group called 9/11 Justice that said it was “deeply troubled by these plea deals,” calling them the product of “closed-door agreements where crucial information is hidden without giving the families of the victims the chance to learn the full truth.”

Republican lawmakers expressed dismay at the agreements: among them, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who introduced legislation intended to nullify it.

“Giving a plea deal to the terrorist masterminds behind 9/11 is disgraceful and an insult to the victims of the attack,” he said.

Austin’s decision throws the case back into limbo.

This is a developing story.