9/11 Trial Delayed to June 2028 as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Case Faces New Setbacks

Nearly a quarter-century after the September 11 attacks, the trial of the man accused of orchestrating them has been pushed back again. On Wednesday, a US military judge set June 5, 2028, as the date when Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three alleged co-conspirators will finally face trial for plotting to crash hijacked airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The new timeline represents an 18-month delay from what prosecutors had requested—a postponement that underscores the grinding, seemingly endless procedural obstacles that have defined this case since Mohammed's capture.

Air Force Lt Col Michael A Schrama, the presiding judge, cited unresolved pretrial disputes as the reason for the extended timeline. The central issue: what evidence will be allowed into the courtroom. These disagreements over admissibility have become a recurring feature of a prosecution that has already consumed more than two decades without reaching trial. Even with the June 2028 date now on the calendar, Schrama made clear that further delays remain possible if the case fails to meet the milestones and deadlines set ahead.

Mohammed stands accused of developing and directing the entire plot. He will be tried alongside three men identified as his accomplices: Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. All four remain detained at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where they have been held for years as the legal machinery has ground forward at a glacial pace. The case represents one of the most protracted terror prosecutions in American history, a fact that sits uneasily against the scale of the crime—nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks, and the families of victims have spent more than two decades waiting for answers about how the plot was conceived and executed.

The path to this June 2028 date has been marked by reversals and abandoned agreements. Just last year, a federal appeals court threw out a plea deal that had taken two years to negotiate. Under that agreement, Mohammed would have pleaded guilty and accepted a life sentence without parole, sparing him the possibility of execution. The deal would also have required him to answer questions that victims' families still carry—details about the planning, the decision-making, the reasoning behind the attacks. But the Biden administration repudiated the agreement before it could be finalized, leaving the case to proceed toward a full trial instead.

The military court system has proven unable to move the case forward with any speed. A trial date had been set for 2021, only to be cancelled. Now, with the 2028 date established, there is no guarantee it will hold. The judge's language suggests that the case remains fragile, dependent on the resolution of disputes that have already consumed years. For the families of the nearly 3,000 people who died on September 11, 2001, the trial that was supposed to bring closure and accountability continues to recede into the future.