A U.S. Air Force judge has set a trial date for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, and three co-defendants. The trial is scheduled to take place before a military tribunal in June 2028, as ordered by Lt.-Col. Michael Schrama.
This decision represents a significant development in a legal process that has been stalled for over two decades concerning the four detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Recent events saw a U.S. appeals court deny Mohammed and two of his co-defendants the opportunity to plead guilty, a move that would have spared them from facing the death penalty.
The appellate ruling overturned previous decisions made by a military judge and the U.S. Court of Military Commission Review in support of the proposed plea agreement. The deal, initially accepted by the official overseeing the Pentagon’s Guantanamo war court in the previous year, was later revoked in 2024 by Lloyd Austin, who was the defense secretary under President Joe Biden at that time.
In the recent 11-page order issued by Schrama, the trial for Mohammed and his three co-defendants, which also includes Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, is set to commence on June 5, 2028. Notably, a fifth individual involved in the case was deemed unfit to stand trial due to mental illness.
Schrama dismissed the prosecutors’ suggestion of starting the trial in January 2027, citing insufficient time for the resolution of pretrial evidentiary and compliance matters. This legal process has seen five military judges overseeing the case since Mohammed’s capture in Pakistan in 2003, with previous trial schedules disrupted by the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The admissibility of certain evidence has been a contentious issue, particularly due to allegations of torture faced by Mohammed and others at CIA detention sites.
The 9/11 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of nearly 3,000 individuals, including 26 Canadian citizens, were claimed by the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. Mohammed is accused of orchestrating the scheme to crash hijacked passenger planes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a rural area in Pennsylvania.
Having gained significant notoriety, Mohammed remains a prominent inmate at Guantanamo Bay, where foreign militant suspects were detained following the 9/11 attacks. Despite numerous convictions and repatriations, only 15 detainees currently remain at the facility.
Furthermore, Mohammed’s nephew, Ramzi Yousef, is serving a sentence in Colorado for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, which resulted in six fatalities.
