Justice Department asks federal appeals court to block plea deal with alleged 9/11 mastermind

The Justice Department (DOJ) on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to block a plea deal which would eliminate the death penalty for three of the alleged terrorists behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. 

A military appeals court last month declined to overturn a lower court's ruling that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin lacked the proper authority to revoke a plea deal made with three of the alleged masterminds. Austin attempted to revoke the plea deal last August, after other officials in the department offered the deal that included guilty pleas in exchange for removing the death penalty.

The DOJ argued in its brief to an appeals court in Washington, D.C., that the government would be irreparably harmed if the guilty pleas were accepted, according to the Associated Press. 

The department also claimed that the plea deal would rob the department of holding a public trial and the opportunity 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."

Defense attorneys argued that the plea deal should stand because it was legally negotiated. 

The last-minute appeal comes days before the primary alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is expected to plead guilty. Mohammed is expected to enter the plea on Friday, and the two other defendants would enter theirs next week at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Prosecutors allege that Mohammed in 1996 presented the idea to 9/11 orchestrator Osama bin Laden of hijacking the planes and flying them into the Twin Towers in New York City and other sites on U.S. soil on Sept. 11, 2001.

Misty Severi is a news reporter for Just The News. You can follow her on X for more coverage.