Trial date set for four accused of involvement in 9/11 plot

A trial date has been set for four men who have spent years held in Guantánamo Bay for their alleged involvement in the 9/11 attack, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is accused as the mastermind of the plot.

In a ruling that came just weeks before the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack that brought down the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City and killed nearly 3,000 people, Judge Lt Col Michael Schrama issued an order Wednesday, for the trial to begin on 5 June 2028.

Schrama is the fifth military judge to be appointed since the 9/11 military commission arraigned the defendants in 2012. For years, the case has been mired in pre-trial legal conflicts and disputes over the evidence that can be used during the trial.

Among the biggest issues are the confessions gotten from the men after they were detained in CIA prisons where torture, abuse and isolation were used. The prosecution has also relied on national security privilege to keep important details from defense attorneys, provoking questions about fairness, according to the New York Times.

Walid bin Attash is accused of operating the training camp in Afghanistan. Ammar al-Baluchi, Mohammed’s nephew, allegedly helped fund the operation and enrolled hijackers in flight school. Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi man, is accused of supplying cash, credit cards and clothing for those involved in the plot.

The provisional date set by Schrama depends on a series of procedural deadlines and processes outlined in the order, that the judge referred to as the “the overarching scaffolding”.

“A realistic trial date must account for the hearing and resolution of pretrial evidentiary and compliance motions,” Schrama ruled, denying a request from the prosecution for the trial to begin as early as next January.

Five men were initially brought to court at Guantánamo Bay in 2008. Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni man accused of aiding attackers by organizing logistics, was later found to be mentally incompetent to stand trial, due to post-traumatic stress disorder caused by the US military’s “enhanced interrogations”. His case is being handled separately as a result.

The four other men are facing the death penalty, in what is widely considered one of the most complex capital cases. Dozens of pre-trial hearings have already come and gone over the years, without resolution.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, and two other defendants, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, have petitioned the US supreme court to rescind a 2024 decision from Lloyd J Austin III, then defense secretary, to block a plea deal that would have allowed them to serve life terms in prison rather than face a death penalty trial.

The deal was originally seen as a path forward that would close the case legal experts have said will continue to be snarled by how defendants were treated at the hands of their interrogators. But it was heavily criticized by victims’ family members and advocates who have spent decades waiting for justice.

Terry Strada, the leader of the group 9/11 Families United and a widow who lost her husband in the attacks, has long pushed for the men to face trial, despite whatever legal hurdles remain.

In 2024, after the defendants’ deal was pulled off the table, she told the Associated Press she was willing to wait years for “the punishment to fit the crime. And that would be the death penalty.”