The Supreme Court refused to revive Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's 9/11 plea deal.

A one-line denial on an order list ends a two-year fight over a deal that lasted two days. The 2024 agreements would have traded guilty pleas for life without parole. Then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin pulled them, an appeals court backed him, and Monday's order leaves that ruling standing. The case now heads toward a military trial tentatively set for June 5, 2028, with death still a possible sentence.

The New York Post reported that on Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's bid to restore the plea agreement he reached with military prosecutors in 2024. Axios reported the denial came on the court's Monday order list in Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, et al. v. United States, that the order did not explain the decision, and that Justice Brett Kavanaugh recused himself. Axios noted Kavanaugh served as associate counsel to President George W. Bush, and the Post reported he was in the White House counsel's office when Mohammed was captured in 2003. The Post reported there were no noted dissents. AP News also reported the court would not revive the deal. An unexplained denial is not a ruling on the merits. It leaves the lower court's decision in place.

The agreements date to July 31, 2024. The New York Post reported that Mohammed and co-defendants Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi agreed with the Office of Military Commissions to plead guilty and accept life sentences without the possibility of parole. Two days later, amid a national outcry, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rescinded the deals, saying only the Pentagon chief could authorize such an agreement. Axios quoted Austin as saying that "responsibility for such a decision should rest with me," and reported the decision to offer the deals had drawn outrage from some 9/11 victims' families. A military court first sided with the defendants, Axios reported, before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit sided with Austin. The Post reported that appeals panel was divided. Monday's order was the defendants' last stop.

Mohammed is charged with 2,977 counts of murder, terrorism and violations of the law of war, among other offenses, the New York Post reported. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, killed 2,977 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The 2004 bipartisan 9/11 Commission report described him as the "principal architect" of the attacks, and the Post reported he was quoted at a 2007 U.S. military hearing as saying, "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z." Those are the charges and his reported statements. A military jury has not decided them.

The case has been stuck for most of a quarter century. The New York Post reported the delays grew out of disputes over evidence obtained from the three men during CIA "enhanced interrogation," that Mohammed and four other accused men were charged in 2008 and recharged four years later, and that in August a military judge threw out statements Mohammed gave the FBI in 2007, ruling they were not voluntarily given. Axios reported the men have been held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006, that prosecutors had sought a January 2027 trial, and that a judge found that left too little time for pretrial issues. The tentative trial date is now June 5, 2028. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.