Death penalty back on table for accused mastermind of Sept. 11 attacks: Defense Secretary

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday "effectively put the death penalty back on the table” in the war court case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the New York Times reports.

The Times’ Carol Rosenberg, reporting from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, says 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” in the case against Mohammed “and two alleged accomplices … for the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.”

In the memo, released Friday by Austin, the secretary of defense “determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre- trial agreements with the accused in the above-referenced case, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009.”

“Effective immediately, I hereby withdraw your authority in the above-referenced case to enter into a pre- trial agreement and reserve such authority to myself,” Austin wrote in the memo addressed to retired Brig. Gen. Susan K. Escallier, who was overseeing the war court and “signed a pretrial agreement on Wednesday with Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi that exchanged guilty pleas for sentences of at most life in prison,” the Times reports.

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The Times adds, “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.”

Austin’s remarks come after several Republicans criticized Escallier’s approval of the plea deal, which the Times reports came as “Austin was traveling abroad and returned to the United States later [Wednesday]."

Per Rosenberg’s report:

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the longtime Republican leader, called the plea agreement “a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice.”

Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas called the deal “disgraceful and an insult to the victims of the attacks,” and introduced legislation intended to nullify it.

Austin’s memorandum was reportedly “met with disbelief by lawyers at Guantánamo Bay,” including Sheikh Mohammed’s defense counsel Gary Sowards, Rosenberg notes.

“If the secretary of defense issued such an order, I am respectfully and profoundly disappointed that after all of these years the government still has not learned the lessons of this case, and the mischief that results from disregarding due process and fair play,” Gary D. Sowards said.

Read the full report at the New York Times.