The U.S. military judge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has scheduled hearings in early January for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants to enter guilty pleas in exchange for life sentences.

A defense official says the Defense Department will appeal a military judge’s ruling that plea agreements struck by the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and two of his co-defendants are valid.

A lawyer for news organizations has urged the U.S. military commission at Guantanamo Bay to unseal the plea deal struck with accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two others.

A Defense Department disagreement over how to bring to justice the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and four others has thrown the cases into disarray.

Military-run hearings for accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two co-defendants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are in upheaval following Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s decision to throw out a plea agreement.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has overridden a plea agreement reached earlier this week for the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and two other defendants, reinstating them as death penalty cases.

The man accused of being the main plotter in al-Qaida’s Sept. 11, 2001, attacks has agreed to plead guilty.

Nearly two decades after his capture in Pakistan, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks is still in a legal limbo.

A judge and lawyers in the case against the only person ever convicted in a U.S. court in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks recalled the difficulties in bringing that case to trial.

In the last year, four men implicated in the 1993 bombing have won reductions to their sentences after one part of their convictions was dropped to be consistent with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Nidal Ayyad, 53, Mohammad A. Salameh, 53, and Mahmud Abouhalima, 61, could be freed if they each live to be 100. AdThe bombers who had their sentences reduced were arrested in the intense FBI probe that followed the blast. In a 2012 memorandum, Duffy called Yousef “a cold-blooded killer, completely devoid of conscience.”AdIn a second trial, he was convicted as the mastermind of the 1993 bombing. Eyad Ismoil, 49, also convicted in the 1993 attack, is serving a 210-year sentence.

But the Supreme Court will rule on that next week, Siddiqi said. “Today the court admitted the appeal and next week it will decide if Sheikh stays in jail” until the appeal is decided. The acquittal stunned the U.S. government, Pearl's family and journalism advocacy groups. The U.S. State Department said in a statement that it is watching the case closely and “stands with the Pearl family during this arduous and painfull process." The Pearl family launched a foundation in Daniel's name following the killing, said his father.