US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has withdrawn a controversial plea agreement with three masterminds behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Fraught with legal complications and delays, the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid Bin ‘Attash, and Mustafa al Hawsawi has been ongoing for over two decades. Following their capture in Pakistan, the terrorists were charged in 2008 with a litany of crimes, including conspiracy, murder, and terrorism.

However, complications in bringing a solid case against them due to questionable interrogation tactics led to a plea deal last week that took the death penalty off the table.

“I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me,” Austin wrote in a memo to the Guantánamo military commission. “I hereby withdraw from the three pre-trial agreements that were signed in the above-referenced case.”

Republican lawmakers were quick to voice their opposition to the initial pleas agreement. Republican VP nominee J.D. Vance described the plea bargain as a “sweetheart deal with 9/11 terrorists” during a rally in Pennslvania. House Speaker Mike Johnson described it as a “slap in the face” to the families of the nearly 3,000 victims who died on September 11.

Sheikh Mohammed, considered one of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden’s most trusted lieutenants, has confessed for planning the 9/11 attacks. He spent three years in secret CIA prisons after his capture in 2003 before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.

The other two terrorists 0played crucial roles in the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor. Bin ‘Attash is accused of training two of the 9/11 hijackers, while Hawsawi is suspected of managing the financing for the operation.

Without much of a conscience, the terrorists’ defense lawyer Gary D. Sowards criticized Austin’s decision.

“I am respectfully and profoundly disappointed that after all of these years the government still has not learned the lessons of this case, and the mischief that results from disregarding due process and fair play,” he told the New York Times.