9/11 accused Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gets 2028 trial date amid torture row

A US military judge has scheduled Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial for June 2028 at Guantanamo Bay. Torture-related legal disputes and failed past plans have raised fresh doubts over whether the case will ever conclude.

In Short

• A judge barred Mohammed's 2007 FBI confession over torture-tainted evidence
• US prosecutors skipped an appeal to avoid dragging proceedings even longer
• Families of victims still insist justice must be delivered eventually

More than two decades after Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was taken into US custody, the man accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks still appears far from facing a final trial. A US military judge has set June 5, 2028, as the trial date for Mohammed and three others at Guantanamo Bay, but some lawyers say the case may never reach that stage because of the legal complications arising from his torture after his 2003 capture in Pakistan.

The case has already seen a failed attempt to move it to a civilian court in New York, and a plea deal announced in 2024 that would have kept Mohammed in prison for life while sparing him a possible death sentence has also fallen apart. "It's all contaminated by politics and the lack of accountability on torture," said Joshua Dratel, a lawyer who played a part in ensuring Mohammed had proper legal representation.

In late August, the military judge who fixed the 2028 trial date ruled that prosecutors could not use an alleged confession Mohammed made to the FBI in 2007. The judge said the statements were tainted because Mohammed had been subjected overseas to "enhanced interrogation techniques", including waterboarding, a simulated drowning method.

Although the ruling was a setback for the prosecution, the US government chose not to appeal, partly because an appeal could have delayed any possible trial even further. Mohammed remains jailed at Guantanamo Bay, where he was taken on September 5, 2006, after spending more than three years in secret prisons in other countries.

Families of those killed in the attacks still say they want the trial to happen. Terry Strada, whose husband Tom died at the World Trade Centre on September 11, said she and others who lost relatives still hope the case will one day come to an end. "We very much want to see this come to an end at some point. We do want to see justice served. It's just as important as 25 years ago," she said.

At the same time, Strada, national chair of 9/11 Families United, said she would rather see Mohammed remain at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely than support any outcome that removes the death penalty. She said she feared that if he was not executed, a future US administration might try to exchange him for Americans held abroad. The death penalty, she said, "fits the crime and it would prevent that from ever happening. And that's important to me."

Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and accused of developing and directing the 9/11 attacks as a leader of the militant group al-Qaida. Some of the long delays in the legal process have been linked to what happened after he came under US control. A US Senate report pointed to his prolonged torture in CIA custody, including 183 sessions of waterboarding.

For a period in 2009, it appeared that Mohammed might be tried in New York after then attorney general Eric Holder announced plans to prosecute him and four others in a Manhattan courthouse near the World Trade Centre site. Then president Barack Obama, who had promised to close the Guantanamo detention centre, said Mohammed would face "the most exacting demands of justice".

That plan quickly ran into opposition. Critics said Mohammed could use such a trial to spread hostile views about America and its allies, while others raised security concerns and said the case could again make New York a target for terrorism. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, called the plan unwise and said it showed "a lack of concern for the rights of the public." The proposal for a civilian trial was later dropped.

"It was a charade in many respects," Dratel said. He added that the military tribunal system had proved to be a worse option, saying it had been unable to function efficiently, lacked a proper structure and did not match the standards of federal courts. "Each time you reach an impasse, no one knows what to do," he said.

David Raskin, a Washington lawyer now in private practice who would have led the prosecution in New York had that plan gone ahead, wrote in an essay published in The Washington Post on Wednesday that he believed a civilian trial would have ended in conviction. The military commissions, he wrote, "became a defence lawyer's dream," troubled by "endless litigation over their legality and procedures." He added: "I predict there will never be a completed military commission trial for Mohammed and the other September 11 defendants." Taken together, the rulings, delays, failed trial plans and collapse of the plea deal mean the long-running case remains unresolved, with no certainty that a military trial will ever be completed.

With PTI Inputs

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