Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accomplices, Walid Bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, were reported in August to have reached an agreement where they would avoid the risk of the death penalty and instead be sentenced to life imprisonment – if they plead guilty.
The deal was immediately criticized and Defense Minister Lloyd Austin stopped the plans, hoping that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed could be brought to trial and potentially sentenced to death.
Now, a judge in a military court has decided that the agreement is valid after all and will be implemented, partly with the motivation that Austin's decision was ministerial interference that risks setting a precedent and giving defense ministers full veto power if they disapprove of a military court's verdict.
The three men were arrested in 2003 and are being held at Guantanamo Bay. The protracted legal process has been affected by the question of whether the torture they were subjected to in CIA custody has affected the evidence.
A potential trial against them is expected to be difficult to conduct, partly because the intelligence service has destroyed large parts of the interrogations.
