A civilian court of appeals says ex-Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin ‘had full legal authority’ to withdraw the plea agreement.

Washington, DC – An appeals court in the United States has validated the decision of former Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin to withdraw a plea deal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the US in 2001.

A panel of judges at the Washington, DC-based federal court of appeals ruled on Friday that Austin “had full legal authority” to revoke the plea agreement for Mohammed and two other defendants.

That deal would have spared Mohammed the possibility of the death penalty in exchange for a plea of guilty.

Friday’s decision will prolong a decades-long legal saga for Mohammed, who has been imprisoned at a notorious detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since he was captured in Pakistan in 2003.

Austin revoked the deal in August of last year, saying that the US public and victims’ families “deserve the opportunity to see” the case brought to trial before a military commission — an alternative justice system established for Guantanamo detainees.

But any trial is likely to be fraught with challenges — including questions about evidence obtained by torture — and will take years, extending the legal limbo for the Guantanamo detainees.

A military judge reinstated the plea agreements in November, and a military appeals court affirmed the decision one month later.

The administration of former President Joe Biden then took the case to a federal civilian court of appeals.

Lawyers for defendants like Mohammed argued that Austin was too late to revoke the agreements, parts of which were already materialising.

But the court of appeals in Washington, DC, ultimately ruled that Austin was right to wait for the outcome of the plea negotiations before revoking the deals.

Writing on behalf of the court’s majority, Judges Patricia Millett and Neomi Rao said that preventing the withdrawal of the deal would have sent the message that plea agreements are “irrevocable upon signing”.

“The Secretary acted within the bounds of his legal authority, and we decline to second-guess his judgment,” the ruling read.

However, dissenting Judge Robert Wilkins decried the decision as revoking a contract that was already in effect.

He likened nixing the plea agreement to refusing to pay a painter who has already finished parts of the work stipulated in a home repairs contract.

For years, rights groups have called for shutting down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, known as Gitmo.

The prison opened in 2002 to house prisoners from the so-called “war on terror” following the attacks in the US on September 11, 2001.

Detainees were arrested in countries across the world on suspicions of ties to al-Qaeda and other groups. Many endured torture at secret detention facilities, known as black sites, before being transferred to Guantanamo.

At Gitmo, civil liberty advocates say detainees had few legal rights. Even those cleared for release through the military commissions remained imprisoned for years, with no recourse to challenge their detention.

The detention facility once housed nearly 800 Muslim men and teenage boys. Now only 15 prisoners remain at the prison; three are eligible for release.

US President Donald Trump has said he will impose a 35% tariff on Canadian goods starting on 1 August, even as the two countries were days away from a self-imposed deadline to reach a new trade deal.

The announcement came in the form of a letter published on Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, along with additional threats of blanket tariffs of 15% or 20% on most trade partners.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his government would continue to protect his country’s workers and businesses as they head towards the new deadline.

Trump has sent more than 20 such letters to other US partners this week. He also says he will soon announce new tariffs on the European Union.

Like Canada’s letter, Trump has vowed to implement those tariffs by 1 August.

A blanket 25% tariff has already been imposed on some Canadian goods, with the nation also hit hard by Trump’s global steel, aluminium and auto tariffs – though there is a current exemption in place for goods that comply with a North American free trade agreement.

US media is reporting that, for now, the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) exemption would still apply to this latest tariffs threat.

Trump has also imposed a global 50% tariff on aluminium and steel imports, and a 25% tariff on all cars and trucks not built in the US.

He also recently announced a 50% tariff on copper imports, scheduled to take effect next month.

Canada sells about three-quarters of its goods to the US, and is an auto manufacturing hub and a major supplier of metals, making the US tariffs especially damaging to those sectors.

Trump’s letter said the 35% tariffs were separate to those sector-specific levies.

“As you are aware, there will be no tariff if Canada, or companies within your country, decide to build or manufacture products within the United States,” Trump stated.

He also tied the tariffs to what he called “Canada’s failure” to stop the flow of fentanyl into the US, as well as Canada’s existing levies on US dairy farmers and the trade deficit between the two countries.

“If Canada works with me to stop the flow of Fentanyl, we will, perhaps, consider an adjustment to this letter. These Tariffs may be modified, upward or downward, depending on our relationship with Your Country,” Trump said.

Trump has previously accused Canada – alongside Mexico – of allowing “vast numbers of people to come in and fentanyl to come in” to the US.

In his response on X, Carney said Canada had made essential progress to “stop the scourge of fentanyl” in North America, and that his government was committed to continuing to work alongside the US to protect communities in both countries.

According to data from the US Customs and Border Patrol, only about 0.2% of all seizures of fentanyl entering the US are made at the Canadian border. Almost all of the rest is confiscated at the US border with Mexico.

Earlier this year, Canada also announced more funding towards border security and had appointed a fentanyl tsar in response to Trump’s complaints.

Canada has been engaged in intense talks with the US in recent months to reach a new trade and security deal.

At the G7 Summit in June, Carney and Trump said they were committed to reaching a new deal within 30 days, setting a deadline of 21 July.

Trump threatened in the letter to increase levies on Canada if it retaliated. Canada has already imposed counter-tariffs on the US, and has vowed more if they failed to reach a deal by the deadline.

In late June, Carney removed a tax on big US technology firms after Trump labelled it a “blatant attack” and threatened to call off trade talks.

Carney said the tax was dropped as “part of a bigger negotiation” on trade between the two countries.

On Friday, Canada’s industry minister Melanie Joly dismissed media questions about whether Ottawa was doing enough to stand for Canadians, saying: ‘We’re not going to negotiate in public.”

Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina – In a grassy valley dotted with white gravestones, thousands of people gathered to mark 30 years since the Srebrenica massacre on Friday.

Seven victims of the 1995 genocide, some of whose remains were only discovered and exhumed in the past year from mass graves uncovered in Liplje, Baljkovica, Suljici and Kamenicko Brdo, were buried during the sombre anniversary on Friday.

Limited remains of one of the victims, Hasib Omerovic, who was 34 when he was killed, were found and exhumed from a mass grave in 1998, but his family delayed his burial until now, hoping to recover more.

Zejad Avdic, 46, is the brother of another of the victims being buried. Senajid Avdic was just 19 when he was killed on July 11, 1995. His remains were discovered in October 2010 at a site in Suljici, one of the villages attacked that day by Bosnian Serb forces.

“When the news came, at first, I couldn’t – I didn’t – dare tell my mother, my father. It was too hard,” Avdic told Al Jazeera, referring to the moment he learned that some of his brother’s remains had been found.

“What was found wasn’t complete, just a few bones from the skull.”

Families like Avdic’s have waited decades for even a fragment of bone to confirm their loved one’s death. Many have buried their loved ones with only partial remains.

The Srebrenica massacre was the crescendo of Bosnia’s three-year war from 1992 to 1995, which flared up in the aftermath of Yugoslava’s dissolution, pitting Bosnian Serbs against the country’s two other main ethnic populations – Croats and Muslim Bosniaks.

On July 11, 1995, Bosnian Serb forces stormed the enclave of Srebrenica, ​​a designated United Nations-protected safe zone, overrunning the Dutch UN battalion stationed there. They separated at least 8,000 Bosniak men and boys from their wives, mothers and sisters, slaughtering them en masse.

Thousands of men and boys attempted to escape through the surrounding woods, but Serb forces chased them through the mountainous terrain, killing and capturing as many as they could. Women and children were expelled from the city and neighbouring villages by bus.

Thousands of people attended the commemoration for victims of the massacre on Friday, which began with a congregational Islamic prayer – men, women and children prostrating in unison among the rows of gravestones.

After the prayer, the remains of the victims, who have been identified using extensive DNA analysis, were carried in green coffins draped with the Bosnian flag.

The coffins were lowered into newly prepared graves. At each site, groups of men stepped forward to take turns covering the caskets with soil, shovelling from nearby mounds in a solemn conclusion to the proceedings.

After the remains had been buried, the victims’ families crowded around the sites, wiping away their tears as an imam recited verses over the caskets.

‘I will keep coming as long as I’m alive’

Fikrera Tuhljakovic, 66, attends the memorial here each year, but this year her cousin was among the victims being buried.

She said she is determined to ensure he is remembered and that all of the victims are never forgotten.

“I will keep coming as long as I’m alive,” Tuhljakovic told Al Jazeera.

Forensic scientists and the International Commission on Missing Persons have, in the decades since the mass killings, worked to locate the remains of those killed.

More than 6,000 victims have been buried at the memorial site in Potocari, but more than 1,000 remain missing.

In 2007, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) declared the events in Srebrenica and the surrounding area a genocide. Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic were both convicted of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity and sentenced to life in prison.

In total, the tribunal and courts in the Balkans have sentenced almost 50 Bosnian Serb wartime officials to more than 700 years in prison for the genocide.

But many accused remain unpunished. Denial of the genocide also continues – especially among political leaders in Serbia and the Serb-majority entity of Republika Srpska, which was established in the northeast of the country at the start of the war in 1992 with the stated aim of protecting the interests of the Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to Emir Cica, Islamic Relief’s Bosnia country director, international institutions have not done enough to prevent events like Srebrenica from happening again, with similar atrocities happening in Gaza at the moment.

“When we see what has happened, for example, in Gaza, it is very painful for us because we understand this [experience],” Cica told Al Jazeera.

For Avdic, Gaza is indeed a painful reminder of history repeating itself.

“Today we are burying our victims of genocide, and today in Gaza, genocide is happening, too,” he said solemnly.

“I don’t know what kind of message to send; there’s no effect on those in power who could actually do something.”

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