9/11 Plot Trial Set for 2028 at Guantanamo Bay
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three co-defendants face death penalty charges, with legal proceedings ongoing since 2012.
Carla Rooney
A U.S. military judge has scheduled a summer 2028 trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three others accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Mohammed, arrested in 2003, has remained at Guantanamo Bay since September 2006; the case against the defendants has dragged on since their 2012 arraignment.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Schrama, the fifth judge assigned to the case, requires additional time to resolve pretrial disputes, including disagreements about admissible evidence.
Confessions obtained from the men were reportedly made after detention in CIA prisons where torture, abuse, and isolation were used.
Mohammed indicated that I planned 2001's 9/11 operation from A-to-Z.
Mohammed previously stated he planned 2001's "9/11 operation from A-to-Z" and stands accused of conceiving the idea of training pilots to fly commercial planes into buildings, then taking those plans to Osama Bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda.
A plea deal that would have allowed life sentences instead of the death penalty was reportedly blocked in 2024 by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd J Austin III.
This rejected plea deal, which would have given Mohammed a life sentence without possibility of parole, was reportedly reached after two years of negotiation and signed by an official appointed by then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Austin was reportedly caught by surprise and immediately attempted to revoke the agreement, which a federal appeals court then threw out last summer.
Separately, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, initially charged in the plot, was found mentally incompetent to stand trial.