OAN Staff Abril Elfi
2:33 PM – Monday, August 5, 2024
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin has urged Department of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to reverse the revokes of plea deals for three men accused of plotting the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.
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“I urge Secretary Austin to reverse this deeply disappointing decision, which denies finality and justice to 9/11 families and exposes yet again the lack of independence that has haunted the military commissions from the outset,” Durbin (D-Ill.) wrote on X.
Last week, the Department of Defense revealed that they had entered a pre-trial agreement with Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi.
The details of the deal were not made public, however, there have been reports that the alleged terrorists have avoided the death penalty.
The news was followed by significant backlash, with family members of 9/11 victims reacting in fear.
“You know, after seeing this, like, I’m so afraid we’re not going to get justice for my cousin and all the thousands killed that day and their families,” Joe Connor, whose cousin, Steve Schlag, was killed on 9/11 and whose father, Frank, was killed in the 1975 FALN terrorist attack on the Fraunces Tavern in New York City, told Fox News Digital.
Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) also released a statement, calling the deal “a slap in the face to America and her honored dead.”
Austin announced on Friday, that he was withdrawing the plea agreements and was relieving the official who had coordinated the deals under his authority.
“I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the above-referenced case, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009,” Austin wrote in the order. “Effective immediately, I hereby withdraw your authority in the above-referenced case to enter into a pre-trial agreement and reserve such authority to myself. Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024 in the above-referenced case.”
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