Overview

• A divided D.C. Circuit panel vacated plea agreements reached last July that would have spared Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants from execution.
• Judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao held that no performance had begun under the accords, giving Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “indisputable” power to cancel them.
• The ruling reinstates capital charges and sends the 9/11 cases back to the Guantánamo military commissions with no immediate trial date.
• In his dissent, Judge Robert Wilkins criticized the decision as overruling military judges who deemed the pacts valid and binding.
• The outcome prolongs a more than two-decade legal struggle marked by procedural setbacks, torture-related evidence disputes, and victims’ families’ demands for closure.