U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with three accused plotters of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including the alleged mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
The previous agreements exchanged guilty pleas from the men for sentences of, at most, life in prison.
Austin relieved the senior official in charge of military commissions, Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, from her oversight of the case, saying in an order released Friday evening, “in light of the significance of the decision … responsibility for such a decision should rest with me.” The cancellation of the agreement effectively makes it a capital case again.
The previous plea agreements with the Pentagon, announced Wednesday, had been a partial resolution for a case that had dragged on for almost 20 years, and was unlikely ever to go to trial.
