Family members of Sept. 11 terror attack victims are praising Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s nullification of plea deals for the accused 9/11 mastermind and two others that would have removed a possible death penalty. The American Civil Liberties Union plans to challenge the reversal in court, citing it in a statement Saturday as a “rash act” that “violates the law,” the Associated Press reports. Terry Strada, chair of the group 9/11 Families United, was shocked by the announcement that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was rejecting a plea deal and was restoring the death penalty as an option. “Nobody saw this coming,” Strada said, calling it the right thing to do. “These men deserve no mercy,” Strada said. “They certainly didn’t show any mercy to my husband or the other 2,976 who died in the attacks.”
“Everybody I’ve talked to wants them put to death because that’s the punishment that fits the crime and the message the United States needs to send to terrorists around the world: We will hold you accountable and exercise the death penalty,” Strada said. She said last week's international prisoner swap was a reminder of the need to ensure that nobody behind the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that turned hijacked planes into missiles that hit the 110-story twin World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon are ever set free. Austin acted two days after the military commission at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, announced that the official overseeing the war court had approved plea deals with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two accused accomplices, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. The ACLU's Anthony Romero said a death penalty would not be upheld on appeal because of torture experienced by those who were captured after the 9/11 attacks and because military commissions are “inherently unjust.” Strada said family members feared that if the defendants were in U.S. prisons, “any future administration could commute their sentence or use them in a possible prison swap.”
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