WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court's ruling Friday allows the federal government to set aside a plea bargain that would spare conspirators in the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the United States from the death penalty.

The decision by a panel of the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., undoes an attempt to wrap up more than two decades of military prosecution beset by legal and logistical troubles.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals concluded that the plea agreements agreed to by a Pentagon official overseeing military commission proceedings against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Wa