Plea deal for accused 9/11 plotters revoked by Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin

Lloyd Austin said in a memo on Friday that responsibility for the decision on a plea deal ‘should rest with me as the superior convening authority’. Photograph: Lisa Marie David/Reuters

The US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, has revoked a plea deal for the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and two other defendants, reinstating them as death-penalty cases, according to a memo sent to Susan Escallier, who is overseeing the war court proceedings.

The short-lived deal came 16 years after prosecution of the three men began.