The US is appealing the ruling that allows 9/11 defendants to plead guilty and avoid the death penalty

WASHINGTON— The Defense Ministry will appeal a military judge’s ruling that agreements between Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and two of his co-defendants are valid, a defense official said Saturday.

The recent ruling overturned Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III’s order rejecting the deals and concluded that the plea agreements were valid. The judge granted the three requests for guilty pleas and said he would schedule them for a later date to be determined by the military commission.

The ministry will also request a postponement of a hearing on the pleas, said the official, who was not authorized to discuss legal matters publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Rear Adm. Aaron Rugh, the chief prosecutor, sent a letter Friday to the families of 9/11 victims informing them of the decision.

The judge, Air Force Col. Matthew McCall’s ruling allowed the three 9/11 defendants to enter guilty pleas at the U.S. military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, sparing them the risk of the death penalty. The pleas from Mohammed, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi would be an important step toward ending the long-running and legally problematic prosecution of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

Government prosecutors had negotiated the agreements with defense attorneys under government auspices, and the top official of the military commission at Guantanamo had approved the agreements. But the deals were immediately criticized by Republican lawmakers and others when they were made public this summer.

Within days, Austin issued an order declaring he would cancel it. He said plea hearings in potential death penalty cases related to one of the most serious crimes ever committed on U.S. soil were a significant step that only the defense secretary should decide.

The judge had ruled that Austin did not have the legal authority to reject the plea deal.

The agreements and Austin’s attempt to undo them have led to one of the most tense episodes in a U.S. law enforcement effort, marked by delays and legal difficulties. This includes years of ongoing preliminary negotiations to examine the admissibility of the defendants’ statements given their torture in CIA custody.

While the families of some and other victims insist that 9/11 prosecutions continue through trials and possible death sentences, legal experts say it is not clear that could ever happen. If the 9/11 cases ever overcome the hurdles of trial, verdict and sentence, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia would likely hear many of the issues in death penalty appeals.

Issues include the CIA’s destruction of interrogation videos, whether Austin’s reversal of the plea deal constituted unlawful interference and whether the torture of the men interfered with subsequent interrogations by “clean teams” of FBI agents that did not involve violence .

Baldor writes for the Associated Press.