For Blake Allison, whose wife was among the nearly 3,000 people killed on 9/11, it’s never been about seeking retribution against the men accused of planning the deadliest terrorist attacks in U.S. history.

It’s about finding answers.

How did the plan come together?

Who funded it? Was Saudi Arabia’s government behind it?

How were the terrorists supported after arriving in the U.S. ahead of the attacks?

“We know what the results were, and they were horrific,” Allison said in a recent interview. “I want to know the stuff that hasn’t come to light.”

I reached out to Allison, who has lived in Lyme since 2005, after early this month U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin nixed a previously announced plea agreement with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and two alleged accomplices being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The deal required the men to admit their guilt before the military commission ruling on their cases. In exchange, the death penalty would no longer be a possible punishment.

More than anyone else in the Upper Valley I can think of, Allison was the best person to ask about Austin’s decision to override the agreement that reportedly had been two years in the making.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Allison dropped off his wife, Anna, at Boston’s Logan International Airport to board American American Airlines Flight 11 for her business trip to Los Angeles. At 8:46 that morning, five terrorists crashed the jetliner into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, killing the 81 passengers and 11 crew members aboard, along with hundreds of people in the skyscraper.

Anna Allison was 48.

In May 2023, Blake Allison was among two dozen victims’ relatives who met at a private school outside of Boston with government prosecutors who wanted their input on any potential plea agreement that took the death penalty off the table.

Allison, an opponent of the death penalty long before 9/11, didn’t object. After admitting their guilt, the men would likely be sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in isolation at the federal super-maximum security prison in Colorado.

Under the agreement, the men would have also had to “testify truthfully about their involvement in 9/11 and take questions from victims’ family members,” Allison said. “That’s important to me.”

A few days before Austin announced that he was quashing the deal, Allison and relatives of other 9/11 victims received an email from prosecutors.

Retired Brig. Gen. Susan K. Escallier, who was appointed by Austin to oversee the cases, had signed the plea agreements, only for Austin to overrule her.

In defending his decision, Austin said it was his “duty to all those whose lives were lost or changed forever on 9/11” for the three men to face a death-penalty trial.

“What gets lost in the 9/11 coverage is that not everybody thinks the death penalty is the only way out,” Allison told me.

Allison’s views on the death penalty put him in the media spotlight as far back as 2012. He was among 10 victims’ family members chosen by lottery to attend the military court arraignment of the accused 9/11 planners at Guantanamo Bay. While in Cuba, prosecutors asked Allison and four relatives of other people killed in the terrorist attacks to talk privately with the defendants’ attorneys about what to expect at trial.

After the meeting, a reporter interviewed Allison and the others about where they stood on the death penalty. “It’s not a productive or appropriate way to resolve anything,” Allison responded in a story that appeared in the Los Angeles Times. “It just perpetuates the idea of needing revenge.”

Twelve years later his position hasn’t changed. “My opposition is not situational,” he said. “Just because my wife was murdered doesn’t make me support the death penalty.”

“There are plenty of reasons a plea bargain makes sense,” he added

It could take several more years of legal wrangling before a trial begins in a case that’s already dragged on for more than a decade. Defense attorneys are challenging Austin’s decision on the grounds that he overstepped his authority. Once a trial is underway, U.S. officials would likely have to testify about the waterboarding and other forms of torture the defendants were subjected to at CIA black sites.

There could still be “some things that our government doesn’t want known,” Allison said.

The chances of Allison or other members of victims’ families ever having an opportunity to question the men are now greatly reduced.

Allison, who turns 75 in October, had knee replacement surgery last November. While recovering he suffered a bad fall that required a second surgery. An infection set in, which landed him in a hospital for 30 days last winter.

He’s on the mend now, getting around with a walker and being driven by his wife, Nancy. Allison and Nancy Itken, who already lived in Lyme, were married in August 2005. Her husband, Lewis, a business associate of Allison’s, died of a heart attack in 2002.

An avid birder, who serves as chairman of the Lyme Conservation Commission, Allison was sitting on his front porch, binoculars close by, when I arrived.

With the 23rd anniversary of 9/11 coming up, it’s argued that a plea agreement could benefit victims’ families who wouldn’t have to wait years for a trial.

“I don’t buy into this notion of closure,” Allison said. “To me, that is not an issue. I made my peace with this a long time ago.”

He keeps photos of Anna on his computer. From time to time, he scrolls through them or one will pop up on the screen when he isn’t expecting it.

“I don’t believe Anna would have been in favor of the death penalty, either,” he said. “She wouldn’t have been looking for revenge. It’s not who she was.”

Jim Kenyon can be reached at jkenyon@vnews.com.