Alleged 9/11 mastermind’s long-awaited trial scheduled for 2028

(NEW YORK) — The alleged self-proclaimed “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks will stand trial in June 2028, a military judge ruled Wednesday, nearly 25 years after the attacks.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in 2003 and has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2006.

“Trial on the merits shall begin on Monday, 5 June 2028,” Lt. Col. Michael Schrama  decided.

Prosecutors sought a trial in 2027 but the judge said that was too soon.

The trial date comes after a yearslong legal saga that includes a controversial plea agreement that was later revoked. 

In July 2024, Mohammed and two other 9/11 defendants held at Guantanamo Bay reached a plea agreement with military prosecutors under which they would plead guilty to all charges, including the murder of 2,976 people, in exchange for the death penalty being taken off the table. 

Under the deal, Mohammed would have served a life sentence at Guantanamo.

The agreement drew criticism from some 9/11 families and just a few days later then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked the deal.

“I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the above-referenced case, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009,” Austin wrote.

After attorneys for the defendants objected, the Biden administration later took the matter to federal court in an attempt to continue to block the plea deal. 

Last July, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled 2-1 that Austin had acted within his authority to revoke the deal. 

The prosecution of Mohammed and other alleged 9/11 plotters detained at Guantanamo has been delayed by more than a decade over concerns about the admissibility of evidence gathered through torture when they were previously detained at the CIA’s “black sites.”

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, two hijacked passenger jets flew into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, marking the start of a series of coordinated attacks that day against the United States by the Afghanistan-based terrorist group al-Qaeda. Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day and thousands more were injured.