US REVOKES PLEA DEAL WITH 9/11 ALLEGED MASTERMINDS

United States Department of Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has revoked plea deals agreed to earlier this week with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused, who have been accused of plotting the September 11 attacks and are being held at the military prison in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.

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A statement by the Pentagon on Friday said without elaborating on the details that plea deals had been entered into.

“Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements,” Austin wrote in a memo to Susan Escallier, who oversees the Pentagon’s Guantanamo war court.

“I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused...responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009,” Austin wrote.