A U.S. military judge on Wednesday scheduled a summer 2028 trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three others charged with conspiring in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Jury selection is set to begin June 5, 2028 , 18 months later than the January 2027 start prosecutors had sought. The extra time is necessary to sort through pretrial disputes, including conflicts over which evidence will be admissible at trial, Air Force Lt. Col. Michael A. Schrama wrote in his order.
The U.S. military and multiple administrations have spent more than two decades trying to deliver justice to the man accused of masterminding one of the deadliest assaults ever carried out on American soil.
The 2028 trial date hinges on the case meeting benchmarks and deadlines along the way and could slip again. An earlier trial scheduled for 2021 was ultimately canceled.
Mohammed is charged with designing and orchestrating the plot to fly hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. A third hijacked aircraft crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. He is scheduled to be tried alongside three alleged co-conspirators: Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi.
They remain among the final detainees being held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
A federal appeals court last year voided a plea agreement that would have permitted Mohammed to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the possibility of execution for al-Qaida’s 2001 attacks.
That arrangement called for life sentences without parole for Mohammed and two of his co-defendants. It also required the men to respond to any unresolved questions families of the victims might have about the attacks. But after two years of negotiations, former President Joe Biden’s administration walked away from the deal.