After Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin tried to annul the agreements, a US military appeals court determined that plea deals involving the man accused of masterminding the 9/11 attacks and two accomplices may proceed.
Austin rejected the Pentagon’s plea agreements with the trio, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, in August.
In November, a US military judge determined that Austin’s decision to revoke the plea bargains was too late and that they remained valid. The order issued late Monday by the United States Military Appeals Court upheld that finding.
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, opens new tab 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.
