The US Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a bid by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, to revive a 2024 plea agreement that would have spared him the death penalty in exchange for guilty pleas. The unsigned order leaves in place the decision of then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to scrap the deals two years ago, sending the long-stalled Guantanamo prosecution toward a military trial now set for June 2028.
What the Supreme Court Decided
The justices turned away appeals by Mohammed and his two co-defendants, Mustafa al Hawsawi and Walid bin ’Atash, challenging a lower court’s ruling that upheld Austin’s authority to void the plea agreements. The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit had rejected the argument that Austin, who served under then-President Joe Biden, acted too late. The court’s brief, unsigned opinion gave no explanation; Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not take part in the consideration of Mohammed and al Hawsawi’s petition.
The Two-Year Legal Battle Over the Plea Deals
The plea agreements were signed on July 31, 2024, after more than a year of negotiations between military prosecutors and the defense teams. Under the terms, the three defendants would have pleaded guilty to all charges arising from the attacks and served life sentences instead of facing execution. The deals were approved by retired Brigadier General Susan Escallier, the Pentagon official overseeing the Guantanamo military commissions, and two days later Austin withdrew them, saying a death-penalty decision in an attack as grave as September 11 should rest with him.
A military judge ruled in late 2024 that Austin lacked the authority to invalidate the deals, a decision upheld in December by the US Court of Military Commission Review. But the D.C. Circuit paused those proceedings, and in July 2025 a divided 2-1 panel ruled that Austin “indisputably had legal authority to withdraw from the agreements.” Defense attorneys, including lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union, had urged the Supreme Court to hear the case, arguing the move “prolonged the best chance for finality in the September 11 case in a quarter century.”
What Comes Next: A 2028 Trial
With the plea deals dead, the case returns to the military commission at Guantanamo Bay. In August, a US Air Force judge set the trial of Mohammed and his co-defendants for June 2028, though the schedule depends on the parties meeting a series of procedural deadlines. The defendants have been held at Guantanamo since 2006; five of the charges against them carry the death penalty.
Prosecutors still face steep hurdles. In August, the military judge threw out Mohammed’s confession to FBI agents as involuntary. Captured in Pakistan in March 2003, Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding and other interrogation methods in secret CIA custody before his transfer to Guantanamo in 2006. Relatives of the September 11 victims, who killed nearly 3,000 people, remain divided: some see a trial as the only path to justice, while others had viewed the plea agreements as the best hope of ending the long, painful case.
The bottom line: after more than two decades of legal gridlock, the accused 9/11 mastermind will not escape the death penalty through a plea bargain. Whether a full military commission trial actually begins in June 2028 remains an open question.
Watch: Watch: USA Today’s report on the Supreme Court’s plea-deal ruling — a video breakdown of the justices’ decision to leave the plea deals withdrawn and put the death penalty back on the table for the accused 9/11 plotters.
Music in this post's reel: Kevin MacLeod - Hitman (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 3.0
Sources
- Reuters: US Supreme Court snubs bid to revive plea deal for accused 9/11 mastermind
- Channel News Asia / AFP: US Supreme Court denies bid by 9/11 mastermind to revive plea deal
- USA Today: Supreme Court won’t revive 9/11 plea deal to end long-delayed prosecution
- The Times of Israel: US Supreme Court rejects efforts to revive plea deal for accused 9/11 mastermind