Military Judge Revives Plea Deals for Alleged 9/11 Mastermind, Accomplices

U.S. Air Force Col. Matthew McCall concluded Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin didn’t have clear authority to revoke plea agreements with three 9/11 defendants.

A Camp Justice sign near the high-security courtroom in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the pretrial sessions for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants, charged for the 9/11 attacks, will be held, in an image released by the U.S. military on July 16, 2009. Mandel Ngan-Pool/Getty Images

A military judge has revived a set of plea deals for three defendants standing trial for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin previously intervened to block the plea agreements.

On July 31, the Pentagon announced Susan Escallier—the convening authority for military commissions, which oversees the 9/11 trials—had approved pretrial agreements with Khalid Shaikh (Sheikh) Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.