New York — It didn’t take long for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to revoke a plea deal for two co-conspirators and the man accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day. Brett Eagleson’s father, Bruce was one of them.
“My dad gave his life for this country. We would hope that our government would have our backs,” said Eagleson, who’s president of 9/11 Justice, an organization representing survivors and relatives of victims. “He died a hero that day. He stayed behind in the buildings. We talked to him after both planes that hit, and he made a conscious decision to go and grab radios to help the FDNY.”
The reported mastermind behind the terrorist attack, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, and Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin 'Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, were captured in 2003. More than 20 years later, and after numerous legal delays, the Pentagon announced on July 31 that it had reached a plea deal with Mohammed, 'Attash and Hawsawi.
Eagleson and other family members of the Sept. 11 terror attacks were outraged.
“Our initial reaction is a bit of shock,” shared Eagleson, who was 15 years old when his father was killed. “We were not informed in any way by the Biden administration. We knew months ago that this was a consideration that was on the table. However, we raised our objections, and we said that we should be involved. This affects us personally more than anybody else in this country. How is it that we're not being consulted on these plea deals now?”
Austin listened to the families’ concerns, releasing a memo Aug. 2 stating he was withdrawing from the three pre-trial agreements, which had taken the death penalty off the table for the three terrorists.
“I personally take no position on the death penalty versus life in jail. But the important part here, I think a major part of this story is that a plea deal means no trial,” said Eagleson. “A plea deal is just the next step in our government's 23 yearlong odyssey to keep everything about 9/11 under lock and key. A trial is our American, right.”
Austin’s memo, addressed to Susan Escallier, the convening authority for military commissions who runs the military courts at Guantanamo Bay, said the defense secretary would immediately withdraw her authority in the cases and “reserve such authority to (himself).”
Prosecutors in the case discussed the possibility of a plea deal for more than two years, which would have avoided a lengthy trial complicated by questions over the admissibility of evidence obtained during torture.
“The Biden administration is trying to, you know, skirt the justice system and grant plea deals, slap each other on the backs and say, ‘hey, we did a great job here.’ No, they didn't. They didn't consult the family members. They should have been reaching out to us, and we should have heard what these individuals had to say in a public court,” said Eagleson.
The American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, said it plans to challenge the reversal in court, citing it in a statement as a “rash act” that “violates the law.”