The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a bid by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, to revive a 2024 plea agreement that would have spared him the death penalty.
The justices turned away appeals by Mohammed and two co-defendants who had also signed plea deals, letting stand a lower court ruling that upheld former Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to void the agreements, according to reports.
A two decade legal saga
The plea agreements had been offered and accepted by the US official overseeing the Pentagon’s Guantanamo war court, prompting criticism from Republican lawmakers, according to reports. Austin then scrapped the deals, and the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected the argument that he had acted too late.
Monday’s action marks the latest milestone in a military prosecution beset by two decades of legal gridlock. In August, a US Air Force judge set the trial for Mohammed and his co-defendants for June 2028, according to reports.
Mohammed remains the most well-known inmate at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, which was set up in 2002 to house foreign terrorism suspects. He is accused of orchestrating the plot to fly hijacked passenger jetliners into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, in attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
What happens now
A Justice Department spokesperson said the Supreme Court’s action “clears the path for holding those responsible for the September 11 attacks accountable”, calling it “a critical step toward delivering justice for the victims and families on one of the darkest days in American history”, according to reports.
With the plea deals dead and no further appeal available, the case now heads toward a full military trial, more than two decades after the attacks that set it in motion.
