The Supreme Court sided with the Pentagon in revoking plea deals that would have locked three alleged Sept. 11 plotters into life sentences and taken the death penalty off the table, a win for capital accountability nearly 25 years after the attacks.
On Monday, the high court backed the Defense Department’s decision to withdraw those agreements with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mustafa al Hawsawi, and Walid bin ‘Attash. The deals, approved in 2024, would have traded life in prison for removing any chance of execution. The court gave no explanation for its action.
The three men challenged the withdrawal. A military judge first ruled that then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had acted too late because the suspects had already started tasks under the agreements. A military appellate court upheld that finding. The government pressed on, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit allowed the withdrawal on a 2-1 vote. The Supreme Court then sided with the Pentagon.
That path keeps the death penalty available in cases tied to the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil. Mohammed, long described as the suspected mastermind, has been held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006. The other two face the same posture after the deals collapsed.
Reporting on the ruling laid out how retired Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, appointed by Austin to oversee military commissions handling of the detention cases, approved the plea deals in 2024. Days after the agreements were announced, Austin withdrew them.
The military judge found the suspects had begun performing tasks required by the deals, so Austin’s move came too late. The military appellate court agreed. Only after the D.C. Circuit stepped in did the withdrawal hold. The Supreme Court’s silence left that outcome intact.
In August, a military judge set a June 2028 trial date for Mohammed and excluded his 2007 confession to FBI agents, ruling it was not voluntary. Several confessions in the remaining detainee cases have already been thrown out over CIA interrogation methods. Families of the nearly 3,000 killed on Sept. 11, 2001, have waited decades for final verdicts that match the scale of the crime.
Readers following the long legal grind will recognize the same pattern seen when a high court blocked Khalid Sheikh Mohammed from restoring a 9/11 plea deal in earlier coverage of this fight.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth traveled to Guantanamo Bay at the start of his tenure. He had already served a year at the base. He visited Mohammed and made plain where he stands on punishment.
When asked how Mohammed looked, Hegseth said:
"I don’t really care,"
He continued:
"But he’s fine, and I hope he finds justice soon. This is one of the rare things I agree with my predecessor on, Lloyd Austin, that he deserves the death penalty, and I hope he finds it soon, through that system."
Hegseth’s agreement with Austin on the death-penalty question underscores how even the prior administration ultimately rejected a deal that would have taken capital punishment off the table. The Supreme Court has now locked that rejection in place.
The military judge’s scheduling order puts Mohammed’s trial more than three years out. Evidence fights continue. The excluded 2007 confession is one more piece of a record already thinned by prior rulings on CIA methods. Prosecutors must still build a case that survives those limits while seeking the maximum sentence the law allows.
That evidentiary fight tracks earlier reporting on how a military judge threw out Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s confession close to a prior anniversary of the attacks.
Fifteen detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay nearly 25 years after the facility opened. Three of them, Guled Hassan Duran, Ismail Ali Faraj Ali Bakush, and Muieen A Deen Jamal-A Deen Abd al Fusal Abd al Sattar, are eligible for transfer back to their home countries. Of the remaining 12, only two have been convicted. Seven have been charged. The three men at the center of the plea-deal fight sit among the charged group still facing the possibility of death sentences.
The slow pace has frustrated victims’ relatives who want clear verdicts, not endless process. Historical context still matters: declassified 9/11 files have long shown how early warnings went unheeded before the towers fell.
The plea deals would have ended any chance of execution in exchange for life terms. Austin’s withdrawal, the D.C. Circuit’s 2-1 decision, and the Supreme Court’s backing reverse that bargain. Capital punishment remains available for the men accused of helping plan and execute the murders of thousands of civilians and first responders.
Mohammed’s status as the suspected mastermind, his long detention since 2006, and the excluded confession all feed into a trial that will test whether the military commissions can deliver a result the public can accept. Hawsawi and bin ‘Attash face the same restored exposure to the death penalty after the deals fell.
Public memory of the attacks remains raw for many families. Separate controversies still surface each anniversary, including fights over who appears at Ground Zero and how schools teach the day. One recent example is the push by 9/11 families petitioning over a Ground Zero ceremony after old posts resurfaced.
The Supreme Court offered no written reasoning. It simply left standing the lower-court path that restored the government’s right to seek death sentences. That outcome matches the position both Austin and Hegseth have taken: these defendants deserve the full measure of justice the law provides.
For a country that still carries the scars of Sept. 11, keeping the death penalty available is not vengeance. It is the sober refusal to bargain away the hardest consequence for the worst mass murder in modern American history.
