The Pentagon chief was caught off guard by prosecutors’ decision last week to offer the men deals.
United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin defended his decision to revoke controversial plea agreements reached between prosecutors and three men accused of planning the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Speaking publicly for the first time about his decision on Tuesday, Austin said it was “not a decision I made lightly” and did so to honor the scale of the loss that occurred that day.
“I have long believed that the victims’ families, our military and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commissions and commission trials held,” he said at an event with visiting Australian officials in Annapolis, Maryland.
The Pentagon announced on July 31 that plea agreements had been reached with three of the five alleged conspirators held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, where they are accused of orchestrating the deadliest attack on U.S. soil in the history of the United States. country.
Nearly 3,000 people died that day when hijacked passenger planes struck targets in New York City and Washington, DC. A fourth crashed into a field as the passengers attacked the hijackers.
The deals involved alleged mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, as well as accomplices Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. A fourth defendant did not agree to the terms, while a fifth man was found mentally incompetent to stand trial last year.
In a statement, it described the agreements as “pre-trial settlements,” without offering further details. US media reports said the men would plead guilty in exchange for receiving a life sentence rather than the death penalty.
The defendants are expected to be tried in a military court at Cuba’s maximum security facilities, but their cases have been stalled for years due to legal disputes.
Plea agreements have been welcomed by some as the only viable way to resolve the long-stalled 9/11 cases, including J Wells Dixon, an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Dixon, who represented defendants at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees who were cleared of any wrongdoing, accused Austin of “giving in to political pressure and pushing some of the victims’ families into an emotional abyss” with the reversal.
The plea deals sparked outrage among family members of some victims and Republican lawmakers, who accused President Joe Biden’s administration of treating the defendants too lightly.
Austin himself was also caught off guard by the decision, Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters on Monday.
“This is not something the secretary [Lloyd Austin] was consulted,” she said. “We didn’t know that the prosecution or the defense would enter into the terms of the plea agreement.”
On Friday, a terse letter from the Secretary of Defense said the plea deals had been withdrawn. Austin added that Susan Escallier, the officer in charge of the military commission who signed them, had also been stripped of her authority to enter into pre-trial agreements and would now take responsibility in the case.
“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw the three pre-trial agreements you signed on July 31, 2024,” the letter said.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan confirmed that the Biden administration played no role in the court negotiations, saying the White House found out “the same day” they were announced.
“We had no role in this process. The president had no role. The vice president had no role. I had no role. The White House had no role,” Sullivan told reporters on Thursday, without explaining why the deals were agreed and announced without consultation.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
