The Supreme Court will soon consider three petitions arising from the legal aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, whose 25th anniversary falls on Friday. Two petitions seek to reinstate plea agreements for three men accused of helping plan the attacks, while the third asks whether victims’ families and insurers may access $3.5 billion in frozen Afghan central bank assets.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, and Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak bin ‘Atash reached plea agreements with military prosecutors in July 2024 after spending nearly two decades at Guantanamo Bay. Under the agreements, the men would plead guilty, avoid the death penalty, and serve life in prison. Two days after the deals were announced, then-Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III moved to withdraw from them, stating that ultimate authority over such agreements rested with him.
The three men challenged Austin’s authority, arguing that the agreements had already been executed. Two military courts found the agreements binding, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned those decisions in July 2025. The men now contend that Austin lacked authority to withdraw and that the appeals court lacked power to grant the federal government such “extraordinary” relief. U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer has urged the Supreme Court to leave the D.C. Circuit’s decision in place, arguing that the appeals court properly exercised jurisdiction and cleared the way for prosecutions to continue. The justices are scheduled to consider both petitions at their Sept. 28 long conference, with a decision on review possible as soon as early October.
The third petition was filed by hundreds of relatives of 9/11 victims, people who lost family members in other terrorist attacks, and insurers holding multibillion-dollar judgments against the Taliban and others. They argue that the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 permits them to recover from $3.5 billion in Afghan central bank funds held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York because the Taliban now controls both the bank and Afghanistan. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit rejected that position last year, holding that the assets were frozen before the Taliban gained control of the central bank. Responses from the Taliban and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York are due Oct. 5.
The petitions follow major Supreme Court decisions addressing detention and prosecution after 9/11. In Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the court held in 2004 that a U.S. citizen detained as an enemy combatant must receive a meaningful opportunity to challenge the factual basis for detention before a neutral decisionmaker. That same year, Rasul v. Bush recognized federal court jurisdiction over foreign detainees’ challenges to confinement at Guantanamo Bay. Hamdan v. Rumsfeld held in 2006 that President George W. Bush lacked authority to establish the military commissions then used at the base, and Boumediene v. Bush held in 2008 that restrictions imposed by the Military Commissions Act of 2006 unconstitutionally suspended habeas corpus.