The US Military Commission Judge Michael Schrama has set the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two other men accused of masterminding the September 11, 2001, attacks for June 2028.
Axios writes about this.
This will happen almost 20 years after Mohammed was indicted, and 27 years after the September 11 attacks.
In July 2025, an appeals court overturned plea deals that allowed Mohammed and other defendants to avoid the death penalty. The US Supreme Court is now deciding whether to hear the case.
Military prosecutors wanted to start the trial in January 2027, but Schrama decided that was an unrealistic deadline.
What preceded
On July 31, 2024, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 attacks, and his accomplices Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Khawsawi agreed to plead guilty. All three have been held at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay since 2006.
The New York Times writes that in exchange for this, the defendants wanted the abolition of the death penalty and life imprisonment.
According to the prosecution, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed suggested to the head of the terrorist organization "Al-Qaeda" Osama bin Laden in 1996 that he use hijacked passenger planes as attack vehicles. During the court hearings, he took full responsibility for the terrorist attacks.
Al-Khawsawi is accused of financing the training of the hijackers and helping to organize their movements, while bin Attash was their assistant and trained the terrorists.
September 11 attacks
On September 11, 2001, members of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda carried out a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks in the United States. The terrorists hijacked four commercial passenger airliners and flew two of them into the World Trade Center towers, located in lower Manhattan, New York City.
The third plane was flown into the Pentagon, located near Washington. Passengers and crew of the fourth airliner attempted to seize control of the plane from the terrorists, but the plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. In addition to the 19 terrorists, the attacks killed 2 977 people and left 24 missing. The attack was the deadliest in history in terms of casualties.
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