A US military judge scheduled the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three other men accused of conspiring in the September 11, 2001 attacks to begin in June 2028. Mohammed, whom prosecutors accuse of organizing the plot, will be tried with Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Walid bin Attash and Ali Abdul Aziz Ali through the military commissions system at Guantánamo Bay.
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Michael Schrama rejected a January 2027 opening proposed by prosecutors and moved the start approximately 18 months later. The ruling adds another milestone to proceedings that have stretched across multiple administrations and generated extensive disputes over military commission rules, evidence and the treatment of detainees before their arrival at the US naval base in Cuba.
The defendants face allegations connected to the hijacking plan that struck New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A fourth aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks. Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003, transferred to Guantánamo in 2006, then charged and arraigned in 2008 on accusations including war crimes and murder. The allegations have not yet been resolved at trial.
The newly selected date follows the collapse of a possible negotiated outcome. A divided federal appeals court rejected an arrangement the previous summer under which Mohammed could have pleaded guilty and avoided exposure to a death sentence. With that agreement set aside, the prosecution returned to preparations for a contested capital case involving all four accused men.
Pretrial litigation has repeatedly tested a military commissions framework developed during the era of President Barack Obama. Defence lawyers have argued that delays are tied in part to government attempts to withhold information about abuse in clandestine CIA detention facilities. A 2014 Senate report concluded that Mohammed and other detainees were subjected to techniques the agency called enhanced interrogation. It recorded that Mohammed was waterboarded 183 times, describing the episodes as repeated near-drownings.
The extended lead time gives both sides additional room to address unresolved motions and prepare an unusually complex evidentiary record before jury selection and opening arguments.
Those circumstances have complicated questions about evidence, disclosure and the fairness of proceedings, helping make the case one of the longest-running prosecutions arising from the 2001 attacks. The June 2028 date establishes a target rather than resolving those underlying legal contests. If the schedule holds, more than two decades will have passed between Mohammed’s transfer to Guantánamo and the opening of the joint trial. The judge’s ruling therefore provides a new timetable while leaving the substantive accusations, potential penalties and continuing pretrial disputes for the commission to address.
