A U.S. military appeals court has ruled that plea deals related to the man accused of masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two accomplices can proceed after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had earlier moved to invalidate the agreements. - REUTERS
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00:00A plea deal that could let the alleged mastermind of the 9-11 terrorist attacks avoid the death
00:04penalty was upheld by a U.S. military appeals court.
00:08Earlier this year, three men held for decades without trial at the Guantanamo Bay Detention
00:12Center reached an agreement with Pentagon prosecutors to plead guilty and possibly avoid
00:17the death penalty.
00:18The prisoners include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
00:21He is accused of leading the plot to fly hijacked commercial passenger aircraft into the World
00:25Trade Center in New York City and into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.
00:30The 9-11 attacks, as they are known, killed nearly 3,000 people and propelled the U.S.
00:34into a two-decade war in Afghanistan.
00:36U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in August rescinded the plea deals.
00:40The Pentagon previously said Austin was surprised by the plea deals and that the secretary was
00:44not consulted because that process is independent.
00:47But in November, a U.S. military judge ruled that Austin acted too late on revoking the
00:51plea deals and that they were still valid.
00:54The order late on Monday by the U.S. military appeals court upheld that ruling.
00:58The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.
01:01Mohammed, also known as KSM, is the most widely known inmate at Guantanamo Bay.
01:06The prison was set up in 2002 by then-U.S. President George W. Bush to detain foreign
01:11militant suspects following the September 11 attacks.
01:14Human rights experts, including at the United Nations, have condemned torture at Guantanamo
01:18Bay and elsewhere during the so-called War on Terror and demanded an apology from Washington.
01:25Former President Barack Obama acknowledged in 2014 that the U.S. had engaged in torture
01:29and said it was, quote, contrary to our values.