The Biden administration is asking a federal appeals court for an injunction to temporarily block a plea deal agreement with three detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, including 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, which would see the defendants avoid the death penalty.
The three prisoners were set to enter their pleas as early as Friday at the military prison.
On New Year’s Eve, a military appeals court shot down Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin‘s effort to block the deal between military prosecutors and defense lawyers, saying Austin did not have the power to cancel plea agreements.
Specifically, the court opinion said the plea deals reached by military prosecutors and defense attorneys were valid and enforceable and that Austin exceeded his authority when he later tried to nullify them.
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In its appeal this week, the government says, “Respondents are charged with perpetrating the most egregious criminal act on American soil in modern history—the 9/11 terrorist attacks.”
“The military commission judge intends to enforce pretrial plea agreements that will deprive the government and the American people of a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and the possibility of capital punishment, despite the fact that the Secretary of Defense has lawfully withdrawn those agreements,” the appeal read. “The harm to the government and the public will be irreparable once the judge accepts the pleas, which he is scheduled to do in hearings beginning on January 10, 2025.”
The appeal also noted that once the military commission accepts the guilty pleas, there is likely no way to return to the status quo.
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“The government and the public will lose the opportunity for a public trial as to the respondents’ guilt and to seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world,” it continued. “The government is likely to prevail on the merits of its petition for a writ of mandamus and prohibition, but it will be a pyrrhic victory unless this Court first issues a stay of the military commission’s proceedings, at least as they relate to enforcing the withdrawn pretrial agreements and accepting the respondents’ pleas, until this Court can decide the merits of the government’s petition.”
The plea deal in the long-running case against the terrorists was struck over the summer and approved by the top official of the Guantánamo military commission.
A number of 9/11 victims and U.S. politicians have condemned the plea deals.
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“Joe Biden, Kamala Harris have weaponized the Department of Justice to go after their political opponents, but they’re cutting a sweetheart deal with 9/11 terrorists,” now-Vice President-elect JD Vance said at the time.
The Pentagon revoked the deals in July.
“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pretrial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024,” a letter from Austin states.
On Monday, the Biden administration announced the transfer of 11 Yemeni detainees, including two former bodyguards for Osama bin Laden, who were being held at Guantánamo Bay, to Cuba.
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All the men were captured in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks and were held for more than two decades without being charged or put on trial.
The transfer was carried out as part of an early morning secret operation on Monday, days before Mohammed, Guantánamo’s most notorious prisoner, was scheduled to plead guilty to plotting the 9/11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in exchange for a life sentence rather than face a death-penalty trial, the New York Times reported.
The move had been in the works for about three years after an initial plan to conduct the transfer in October 2023 faced opposition from congressional lawmakers.
Fox News Digital’s Danielle Wallace and Louis Casiano contributed to this report.
