US defence secretary overrides plea agreement for accused 9/11 mastermind

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday overrode a plea agreement reached earlier this week for the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two other defendants, reinstating them as death-penalty cases.

The move comes two days after the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, announced that the official appointed to oversee the war court, retired 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 attacks.

Letters sent to families of the nearly 3,000 people killed in the al-Qaida attacks said the plea agreement stipulated the three would serve life sentences at most.

Austin wrote in an order released Friday night that in light of the significance of the decision, he had decided that the authority to make a decision on accepting the plea agreements was his. He nullified Escallier's approval.

Some families of the attack's victims condemned the deal for cutting