A U.S. Air Force judge has set a trial date for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, and three co-defendants. The trial is scheduled to take place before a military tribunal in June 2028, following years of legal complexities surrounding the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Recently, a U.S. appeals court denied the opportunity for Mohammed and two co-defendants to plead guilty, which would have avoided the death penalty. This decision overturned previous rulings supporting the plea agreement made by a military judge and the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review.
Despite a plea deal being initially accepted by the Pentagon’s Guantanamo war court overseer in 2024, it was later revoked by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in response to concerns raised by Republican lawmakers. The trial, involving Mohammed and his co-defendants Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak bin ‘Atash, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, is set to commence on June 5, 2028.
The trial date was pushed back to 2028 by Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, who dismissed the prosecutors’ suggestion of an earlier start in January 2027 due to the need for more time to address pretrial motions. Schrama is the fifth military judge overseeing Mohammed’s case since his capture in 2003. The trial was initially expected to proceed in 2021 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The legal proceedings have been complicated by debates over the admissibility of evidence obtained through torture at CIA detention facilities. Mohammed is accused of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 individuals, including 26 Canadian citizens. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks, leading to the designation of the group as a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 1999.
Mohammed, a prominent detainee at Guantanamo Bay, is alleged to have planned the hijacking of passenger planes that crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Another hijacked plane crashed in Pennsylvania. Following the 9/11 attacks, Guantanamo Bay became a detention center for foreign militant suspects, with only 15 detainees remaining after various legal processes, including convictions and repatriations.
Notably, Mohammed’s nephew, Ramzi Yousef, is currently serving a sentence in Colorado for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, which resulted in six fatalities.