Defense Secretary Revokes Plea Deal for Accused Sept. 11 Plotters

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III assumed direct oversight of the case and effectively put the death penalty back on the table.

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Because of the stakes involved, the “responsibility for such a decision should rest with me,” Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III said in an order.

Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III on Friday overruled the overseer of the war court at Guantánamo Bay and revoked a plea agreement reached earlier this week with the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two alleged accomplices.

The Pentagon announced the decision with the release of a memorandum relieving the senior official at the Defense Department responsible for military commissions of her oversight of the capital case against Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his alleged accomplices for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.

The overseer, retired Brig. Gen. Susan K. Escallier, signed a pretrial agreement on Wednesday with Mr. Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi that exchanged guilty pleas for sentences of at most life in prison. In taking away the authority, Mr. Austin assumed direct oversight of the case and canceled the agreement, effectively reinstating it as a death-penalty case. He left Ms. Escallier in the role of oversight of Guantánamo’s other cases.

Because of the stakes involved, the “responsibility for such a decision should rest with me,” Mr. Austin said in an order released Friday night by the Pentagon.

“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024.”

Ms. Escallier’s approval of the agreement that was reached between prosecutors and the defendants over two years of negotiations had appeared to resolve the case, which had been mired in pretrial hearings since 2012.

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