Pentagon chief says he has not changed position on Guantanamo Bay plea deals

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By Idrees Ali

MIAMI (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Thursday he still believed he should be the one to decide the fate of plea deals for the man accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks and two accomplices held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Earlier this year Austin rescinded plea deals that the Pentagon had entered into with the trio, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

This week a U.S. military judge ruled that Austin had acted too late on revoking the plea deals and they were still valid, a U.S. official said.

Austin did not say whether he would formally appeal the decision by the judge but said his views had not changed on the issue.

“What I told you (a few months ago) was that this is a very important issue, and I thought at that point in time it was important enough that I should be the person that made the decision on this,” Austin told reporters.

“And I still feel that same way,” Austin added.

In a statement, Pentagon spokesperson Air Force Major General Patrick Ryder said Austin was reviewing the decision by the judge.

The Pentagon has said Austin was surprised by the plea deals and the secretary was not consulted because it is an independent process.

Many Republican lawmakers, including House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, had strongly criticized the plea deals.

Mohammed is the most well known inmate at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, which was set up in 2002 by then-U.S. President George W. Bush to house foreign militant suspects following the Sept. 11, 2001, 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’re known, killed nearly 3,000 people and plunged the U.S. into what would become a two-decade-long war in Afghanistan.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; Editing by David Gregorio)