WASHINGTON — A military judge has ruled that plea agreements struck by alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants are valid, voiding an order by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to throw out the deals, a government official said.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity Wednesday because the order by the judge, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall, has not yet been posted publicly or officially announced.
Unless government prosecutors or others attempt to challenge the plea deals again, McCall's ruling means that the three 9/11 defendants before long could enter guilty pleas in the U.S. military courtroom at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, taking a dramatic step toward wrapping up the long-running and legally troubled government prosecution in one of the deadliest attacks on the United States.
The plea agreements would spare Mohammed and two co-defendants, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, the risk of the death penalty in exchange for the guilty pleas.
Government prosecutors had negotiated the deals with defense attorneys under government auspices, and the top official for the military commission at the Guantanamo Bay naval base had approved the agreements.
The plea deals in the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people spurred immediate political blowback by Republican lawmakers and others after they were made public this summer.
Within days, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin issued a brief order saying he was nullifying them. Plea bargains in possible death penalty cases tied to one of the gravest crimes ever carried out on U.S. soil were a momentous step that should only be decided by the defense secretary, Austin said at the time.
The agreements, and Austin's attempt to reverse them, have made for one of the most fraught episodes in a U.S. prosecution marked by delays and legal difficulties. That includes years of ongoing pretrial hearings to determine the admissibility of statements by the defendants given their years of torture in CIA custody.
