Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin late Friday revoked a controversial plea deal with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attack, and two of his accomplices: Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi.

In exchange for guilty pleas to lesser charges, the trio would have been sentenced to life in prison rather than face the death penalty. Mr. Austin’s decision to pull rank on retired Brig. Gen. Susan K. Escallier — the ex-Army lawyer he appointed to oversee the remaining 9/11 cases in Guantanamo — effectively puts the death penalty back on the table.

“I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the above-referenced case, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority,” Mr. Austin wrote in an Aug. 2 memo to Gen. Escallier. “Effective immediately, in the exercise of my authority, I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that you signed on July 31, 2024, in the above-referenced case.”

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Rep. Mike Waltz,  Florida Republican, is a retired Army Green Beret who served multiple combat tours in Afghanistan. He said the original plea deal should never have happened in the first place.

“At least Sec. Austin cleaned it up, but now what?” Mr. Waltz wrote on X after the memo was released late Friday.

The three defendants have been in U.S. custody since 2003 and are accused of taking part in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York City, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field. The criminal case against them has been mired in years of pre-trial proceedings over whether the evidence was contaminated because of their earlier treatment in secret CIA prisons.

In a letter to relatives of 9/11 victims after the earlier plea deal, military prosecutors in the case said they understood that their legal decision would be met with “mixed reactions.”

“The decision to enter into a pre-trial agreement after 12 years of pre-trial litigation was not reached lightly. However, it is our collective, reasoned, and good-faith judgment that this resolution is the best path to finality and justice in the case,” the letter stated.

The plea deal drew sharp criticism from 9/11 survivors like New York City firefighter Andrew Ansbro, who now leads the FDNY-Uniformed Firefighters Association of Greater New York.

“We feel betrayed and disgusted that they’ll not face ultimate justice of the death penalty and that these terrorists were offered a plea deal which will allow them to live into old age with contact with their families, while NYC firefighters continue to die because of their actions,” Mr. Ansbro said in a statement released by the union.

“We’re still losing three firefighters a month to the effects of 9/11 at Ground Zero,” Mr. Ansbro said.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill also condemned the decision to cut a plea deal with the 9/11 mastermind and his cohorts. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called it “a revolting abdication of the government’s responsibility to defend America and provide justice.”

He said it was a sign of the Biden-Harris administration’s “weakness in the face of sworn enemies of the American people.”

“The only thing worse than negotiating with terrorists is negotiating with them after they are in custody. The families of their victims and the American people deserve real justice,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement.