US military appeals court says plea deals related to 9/11 attacks may proceed

WASHINGTON - 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.

In August, Austin rescinded plea deals that the Pentagon had entered into with the trio, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

In November, a U.S. military judge ruled that Austin acted too late on revoking the plea deals and that they were still valid. The order late on Monday by the U.S. military appeals court upheld that ruling.

The Pentagon declined to comment. It has previously said Austin was surprised by the plea deals and that the secretary was not consulted because that process is independent.

Under the deals, it is possible that the three men could plead guilty to the attacks and in exchange not face the death penalty.

Mohammed is the most widely known inmate at the U.S. detention facility known as Guantanamo Bay on the coast of Cuba. It was set up in 2002 by then-U.S. President George W. Bush to detain foreign militant suspects following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Mohammed is accused of masterminding the plot to fly hijacked commercial passenger aircraft into the World Trade Center in New York City and into the Pentagon. The 9/11 attacks, as they are known, killed nearly 3,000 people and plunged the U.S. into a two-decade war in Afghanistan.

Human rights experts, including at the United Nations, have condemned torture at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere during the so-called war on terror and demanded an apology from Washington. Former President Barack Obama acknowledged in 2014 that the U.S. had engaged in torture and said it was "contrary to our values."

Separately on Monday, the Pentagon said that Ridah Bin Saleh Al-Yazidi, one of the longest-held detainees at Guantanamo Bay, was repatriated from the detention facility to his home country of Tunisia. He was held without charge for over 20 years.

The Pentagon said 26 detainees remained at the facility, of whom 14 are eligible for transfer.

(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Idrees Ali in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)