Supreme Court Rejects Khalid Sheik Mohammed’s Plea
The U.S. Supreme Court on October 19, 2026, denied a bid to revive a plea agreement for Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He is the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The decision keeps the death penalty possible as the case heads toward a military trial scheduled for June 2028.
An earlier agreement would have allowed Mohammed to plead guilty. He would have been able to accept a sentence of life in prison instead of facing execution.
Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rejected the plea agreement in 2024. Austin ruled that the defense secretary had to approve such a major capital-punishment decision. A federal appeals court later upheld Austin’s authority to scrap the deal.
Mohammed remains detained at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
Khalid is accused of developing and directing the 2001 plot to hijack commercial airliners and crash them into the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania.
In the 1990s, he participated in a plan to bomb 11 U.S.-bound transpacific airliners. He planned to target landmarks like the CIA headquarters and the Vatican.
He has been linked to other militant operations, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He also directed the beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
