A military judge has set the trial date for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, and three alleged co-conspirators for June 2028. The co-defendants include Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi.

Mohammed is charged with orchestrating the plot to crash hijacked planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon, with a third plane crashing in a field in Pennsylvania during the attacks. He has been held at the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006 after being captured in Pakistan in 2003 and transferred to Guantánamo three years later.

Military commissions judge Michael Schrama rejected a January 2027 start date proposed by prosecutors, setting the trial approximately 18 months later. This decision follows a split federal appeals court ruling last summer that threw out a potential agreement allowing Mohammed to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty.

Defense lawyers have argued that delays stem from government efforts to conceal details of torture used against detainees at secret CIA prisons before their transfer to Guantánamo Bay. A 2014 Senate report found that the CIA employed "enhanced interrogation techniques" against Mohammed and other conspirators, including waterboarding Mohammed 183 times in what was described as "a series of near-drownings."

Sources