9/11 survivors with potentially fatal illnesses left out of controversial plea deal talks: attorneys

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FIRST ON FOX: Thousands of 9/11 survivors with potentially fatal illnesses from that day were not included in controversial plea deal negotiations, attorneys for the victims told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview.

"Not one of our clients has called us and said, ‘The chief military prosecutor reached out to me for my opinion on whether or not the terrorists should be subject to the death penalty.’ And we think that is simply wrong, not fair and that they could do a much better job outreaching to the entire health community, in addition to the families that lost loved ones on that fateful day itself," 9/11 attorney Troy Rosasco told Fox News Digital. 

There are more than 37,000 9/11 victims, many of whom are first responders from all over the country who traveled to New York City to help that day, suffering from various cancers. 

And more New York Fire Department firefighters have died from 9/11-related illnesses than the number of people who died that day, Axios reported Wednesday.

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A firefighter walks through the rubble of the twin towers of the World Trade Center as a U.S. flag hangs from a traffic light post Sept. 11, 2001, in New York. Two planes controlled by hijackers crashed into the buildings, destroying both. (Doug Kanter/AFP)

Last month, the Defense Department stunningly backtracked on a plea deal that Pentagon prosecutors agreed to last year with three of the terrorists behind the Sept. 11 terror attacks who await trial in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. 

The deal that stirred national outrage and took the death penalty off of the table was revoked by Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III in a terse memo. 

A judge has still not signed off on Austin's reversal.

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The 9/11 memorial in New York City (Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

"We need to know where people stand on this, and we support the decision of Secretary Austin," Dan Hansen, another 9/11 attorney, told Fox News Digital.

Hansen and Rosasco represent more than 1,000 9/11 survivors who are part of the World Trade Center Health Program. They said many of their clients have lung cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer and "all cancers that relate to the parts of their bodies that were exposed by breathing and eating toxic dust, cancers of the esophagus, the mouth, nasal, pharyngeal cancer."

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Pedestrians in lower Manhattan watch smoke billow from New York's World Trade Center Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

"These cancers are getting more and more predominant given the passage of time," Hansen said. "And these are not 100-year old, 90-year-old people. These are people in their 50s and 60s getting all sorts of oddball cancers that we know are related to 9/11." 

Rosaco added that survivors are "entitled to have the government listen to their opinion because they are the ones who are suffering today with illnesses, some of which are leading to death."

"Those are homicides too as far as we're concerned," Hansen said. 

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The defendants of the plea deal are accused of providing training, financial support and other assistance to the 19 terrorists who hijacked passenger jets and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York City; the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia; and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Sept. 11, 2001.

The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people in the worst terror attack on U.S. soil in American history. 

Fox News Digital's Stepheny Price and Bill Mears contributed to this report.