A military judge ruled Wednesday that plea deals sparing accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other terrorists the death penalty must remain in effect.
The stunning move comes three months after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin revoked the shocking plea deals handed out to Mohammed and two alleged accomplices by the Office of Military Commissions in July.
The order, issued by Air Force Col. and Judge Matthew McCall in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was first reported by the Associated Press and has not yet been posted publicly.
Family members of the victims of the heinous terror attack, which killed nearly 3,000, were outraged by the judge’s ruling.
”I am livid that this judge overturned the decision and is allowing these defendants to take a plea deal,” retired police officer Jimmy Smith, whose wife, Moira, was killed on Sept. 11, 2001, told The Post.
“They committed the highest crime in this country and they should receive the worst punishment, which in this case is the death penalty,” Smith argued. “Also I don’t believe in coincidences, they waited to release this decision until after the election. They overturned it before to help the Democrats in the election.”
Dan D’Allara, twin brother of NYPD officer John D’Allara, who was killed on 9/11, told The Post that President-elect Donald Trump should use his executive powers to ensure Mohammed and his accomplices are put to death.
“The first Executive Order President Trump should sign is an Executive Order of Execution for the 5 admitted 9/11 plotters,” D’Allara said. ”They are cowards and they killed a lot of innocent people that day and are continuing to kill people going forward.”
New York City Police Benevolent Association president Patrick Hendry described Wednesday’s ruling as “shameful” and called for an immediate fix.
“This is yet another shameful twist in a case that has seen far too many,” Hendry said. “The cycle of re-victimizing hero 9/11 families needs to end. Our government needs to find a way to fix this immediately.”
“Justice cannot wait any longer,” he added.
Port Authority PBA president Frank Conti said McCall’s ruling “once again denies justice for the families of 37 Port Authority police officers and the families of another 2,939 people killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks on America.
“Everyone should remember the 9/11 murderers offered no such compassion to those killed by their evil.”
The pre-trial agreements pertaining to Mohammed — the accused principal architect of the al Qaeda attacks — and two alleged co-conspirators, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, spare the men the death penalty in exchange for guilty pleas in the government’s long-running effort to prosecute the alleged terrorists.
The trio has been held at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay since 2003.
The deals initially offered by the Office of Military Commissions in July sparked a furor among family members of 9/11 victims and survivors of the attacks, with many slamming them as a miscarriage of justice and preferring that the alleged 9/11 co-conspirators face trial.
Austin, 70, subsequently announced that he had relieved the official responsible for signing off on the widely criticized plea agreements from authority and would instead assert his own authority in the matter.
“There’s not a day that goes by when I don’t think of 9/11 and the Americans that were murdered that day; also those who died trying to save lives and the troops and their families who gave so much for this country in the years following that,” the secretary said.
Austin told reporters of his decision, “I’m deeply mindful of my duty to all those whose lives were lost or changed forever on 9/11, and I fully understand that no measure of justice can ever make up for their loss.”
“So this wasn’t a decision that I took lightly, but I have long believed that the families of the victims, our servicemembers, and the American public deserve the opportunity to see military commissions — commission trials carried out in this case,” he added.
Lawyers for the alleged terrorists slammed the defense secretary’s move as “corrupt,” arguing that the deals were “years” in the making and were made in “good faith.”
“We have had an unprecedented act by a government official to pull back what was a valid agreement,” Walter Ruiz, a lawyer for al Hawsawi, said during a hearing in Guantanamo Bay, according to CNN.
“For us, it raises very serious questions about continuing to engage in a system that seems so obviously corrupt and rigged,” he added.
Kathy Vigiano, a retired police officer and widow of Detective Joseph Vigiano, who died on 9/11, told The Post that while she can’t fathom that the alleged terrorists are not going to be put to death, she now hopes they are at least locked up for life.
“It’s unbelievable to me that these terrorists won’t get death,” Vigiano said. “I can only hope that they get life without the possibility of parole.”
This is a developing story. Check back for more.