Defense chief defends decision to throw out plea deal for 9/11 defendants

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke for the first time Tuesday on his decision to throw out a plea deal for the men accused in al-Qaida’s 2001 attacks, saying that the depth of American losses and sacrifice on 9/11 demand that the military commission trial goes ahead.

“This wasn’t a decision that I took lightly,” Austin told reporters at an event with Australian officials in Annapolis, Maryland.

“But I have long believed that the families of the victims, our service members, and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commissions, commission trials carried out” in the 9/11 case, he said.

At the U.S. military commission in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, meanwhile, lawyers and the judge in the case of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other defendants who had also taken plea deals were still coming to terms with Austin’s surprise order and its effect on efforts to resolve the more than 20-year-old case.

Mohammed and a total of four other defendants at Guantanamo are accused in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, using hijacked passenger jets, that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania. A fourth defendant did not agree to the plea agreement, and a fifth defendant last year was ruled mentally unfit to continue facing trial.

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