Sen. Dick Durbin, R-Ill., says he's troubled by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to revoke the plea deals that spared the death penalty for the masterminds of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"The victims and their loved ones have been waiting for more than two decades for justice, and the trial has not even started," Durbin, the majority whip and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, wrote in a letter to Austin.
"After years of endless pretrial proceedings, it has become painfully clear that these cases are on a road to nowhere."
Austin in early August overrode a plea agreement reached in July for the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two other defendants, reinstating them as death penalty cases.
The move came two days after the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, announced that the official appointed to oversee the war court, retired Army Brig. Gen. Susan Escallier, had approved plea deals with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accused accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, in the massacre.
Despite the defendants being spared the death penalty, Durbin said the deal was a significant step forward for justice and that the U.S. has a legal and moral obligation to deliver justice for the family members of those killed on Sept. 11.
"That’s why I am troubled by your decision to revoke the guilty pleas that, in the reasoned judgment of the prosecutors of the case, were the best path forward to finality and justice," Durbin said.
"This agreement would have given families the opportunity to access information and have their questions answered in ways that a trial, if it ever happens, is unlikely to provide. These guilty pleas would almost certainly have resulted in life sentences for the defendants — the harshest sentences they are likely to receive after years of litigation and appeals."
Durbin also asked Austin to meet with the prosecutors who made the plea deals and to hear from more family members of those killed in the attacks.