Defense Sec can charge 9/11 terrorist plotters with death penalty after appeals court scraps plea deals

A court has ruled that those who carried out the 9/11 attacks can be subject to the death penalty, allowing the Department of Defense to scrap the plea agreements that have protected three terrorists involved with the plot from capital punishment. 

The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that the plea deals that were made for terrorists Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi in July 2024 during the Biden administration can be rescinded by the Pentagon. The terrorists pled guilty to war crimes in the deal, but they can be voided. 

"The Secretary of Defense indisputably had legal authority to withdraw from the agreements,” Judges Neomi Rao, a Trump appointee, and Judges Patricia Millett, an Obama appointee, wrote in the opinion.

Judge Robert Wilkins, appointed by Obama, however, wrote a 75-page partial dissent in contrast with the majority ruling, claiming that the opinion for allowing the killing of the terrorists was "stunning" and that he was "befuddled" over the issue.

The process to void the pleas had originally started under the Biden administration when former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declared the agreements void. “Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024,” he wrote at the time.

A judge had initially ruled in December that Austin had not acted quickly enough to rescind the plea deals. The Trump administration continued the legal process to see the case through after the president was elected.