Key takeaways:
- A military judge set June 5, 2028, as the trial date for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three co-defendants accused in the Sept. 11 attacks.
- The judge rejected prosecutors’ proposed January 2027 start date, saying more time was needed to resolve court matters including evidence disputes.
- A split federal appeals court last summer threw out a plea agreement that would have allowed Mohammed to plead guilty and avoid the risk of execution.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks, will stand trial in June 2028 at Guantánamo Bay, a military judge ruled Wednesday, setting a date nearly 27 years after hijacked planes struck New York, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Michael A. Schrama set the trial for June 5, 2028, rejecting prosecutors’ request to begin in January 2027. The judge wrote that the later date would allow additional time to handle court matters, including disputes over what evidence can be presented.
Mohammed will be tried alongside three co-defendants accused of conspiring in the attacks: Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi. Mohammed has been held at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, since September 2006.
The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people. Hijackers flew commercial planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Virginia. A fourth hijacked plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
Mohammed is accused of orchestrating the plot and of conceiving the idea of training pilots to fly commercial aircraft into buildings before taking the plan to Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda. He has previously said he planned the “9/11 operation from A-to-Z,” the BBC reported.
The case has moved slowly through the military commissions system. Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and transferred to Guantánamo three years later. He was charged and arraigned in 2008 with war crimes and murder in connection with the attacks.
The new trial date follows a ruling last summer by a split federal appeals court that threw out a potential plea agreement. Under that deal, Mohammed would have pleaded guilty in exchange for avoiding the risk of execution. The BBC reported that the agreement, which would have given Mohammed a life sentence without the possibility of parole, was reached after two years of negotiations and signed by an official appointed by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Austin was reportedly caught by surprise and immediately sought to revoke it, according to the BBC.
The yearslong prosecution has been shaped by legal challenges to the military commissions system and disputes over the treatment of detainees before they arrived at Guantánamo. Defense lawyers have argued that delays stem in part from what they describe as government efforts to hide details of torture used against detainees at secret CIA prisons.
A 2014 Senate report found that the CIA used what it called “enhanced interrogation techniques” against Mohammed and other accused conspirators. The report said Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, in what was described as “a series of near-drownings.”
The military prison at Guantánamo Bay opened six months after the attacks. About 15 prisoners remain detained there, the BBC reported.
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