A three-judge appeals panel will decide whether the plea deal Khalid Shaikh Mohammed reached to avoid a death-penalty trial remains valid.

Lawyers for the accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed are urging a federal appeals panel to let his scheduled guilty plea in the attacks go forward

At a hearing beginning on Friday morning, Mohammed was scheduled to plead guilty to his role in the 11 September 2001 attacks, when hijackers seized passenger planes and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon outside of Washington.

The Biden administration succeeded in blocking a plea deal for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed after a federal court issued an administrative stay of a hearing set for Friday. The alleged 9/11 mastermind was expected to plead guilty as part of a plea agreement worked out by military prosecutors that would have removed the death penalty as a possibility in his case.