Lloyd J. Austin III
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000
10 August 2024
Dear Mr. Austin,
On September 11, 2001, my younger sister and only sibling, Laura Rockefeller, died in
the North Tower of the WTC. Our father died in 2003, while the men who were later charged
with planning and supporting the 9/11 terrorist attacks were being tortured by agents of the
CIA in overseas “black sites.” Our mother died in 2013, a year after the current defendants in
the 9/11 pre-trial hearings at the Expeditionary Legal Complex on the Guantanamo Naval Base
were arraigned for the second time in a military commission.
More than 12 years after that arraignment, the prosecution in the case, the government
lawyers who were to deliver justice on behalf of families like mine, recognized with great
honesty and integrity that plea agreements (pre-trial agreements in the military system)
offered an end to the legal purgatory I and so many other 9/11 family members have been
living through.
The Convening Authority, Brigadier General Susan Escallier, your appointee, who is a lawyer
with extensive experience on behalf of military justice, agreed and approved those agreements.
She fully understood that it is unlikely that a military commission trial would ever end with
death penalty convictions that could withstand appeal, and the equally unthinkable likelihood
that no trial would ever take place.
In communication from the prosecution, 9/11 families were assured that the defendants’ pleas
would assure a guilty verdict that would never be appealed. Most importantly, the agreements
were no simple assertion of a willingness to profess guilt, rather they included individual
stipulations of fact that detailed each defendant’s actions. These stipulations were agreed to by
the prosecution, the defense, and the Convening Authority; this was an enormous
achievement. The facts in those stipulations are information that family members have never
been privy to but are eager finally to learn nearly 23 years after our family members were
killed.
At the same time, family members were told by the prosecution how we could submit
questions that the defendants would answer in open court. Many of us have already submitted
questions through the portal that the Department of Defense established.
Then you, Mr. Austin, chose to undo years of effort to craft these agreements and nullified the
best possible path to judicial finality and judicial certainty. You claim that you acted out of
concern for 9/11 family members, but, respectfully sir, you do not know who we are. 9/11
family members are not a monolithic community. While there is a vocal faction who do want
the death penalty. Many, like my parents, died without any resolution and cannot speak up.
Perhaps the largest number of 9/11 family members have grown totally disaffected with the
failure of the military commission system and simply no longer engage. What do you say to
those who now expect nothing from the legal system you oversee?
It is time that you confer with the government prosecutors in the 9/11 case and truly
understand exactly why, after more than 12 years of pre-trial hearings, they came to believe
that plea agreements were their best legal strategy. I urge you to reconsider your actions.
Retract your revocation of the defendants’ pleas and avoid lengthy litigation over your
misguided decision, litigation which will only prolong family members' suffering and frustration.
The very real alternative is to see the planners and supporters of the 9/11 attacks die legally
innocent, as the likelihood that they will be found guilty after a trial and appeals in Article III
courts is vanishingly small.
Most sincerely,
Terry Kay Rockefeller
Sister of Laura Rockefeller—North Tower WTC
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