Trial Still Elusive for 9/11 Suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Two decades after his capture, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed remains at Guantanamo Bay with a 2028 trial date that some lawyers say will never arrive.
More than two decades after his capture, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the purported mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, remains imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay with little prospect of a resolution. A military judge recently scheduled a June 5, 2028, trial for Mohammed and three co-defendants, but some lawyers predict no trial will ever take place, citing a tangle of legal problems stemming from his torture in U.S. custody.
Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and held in secret prisons abroad before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay on Sept. 5, 2006. A Senate report documented his extended torture in CIA custody, including 183 sessions of waterboarding. In late August, the military judge ruled that prosecutors could not use an alleged 2007 FBI confession because it was tainted by "enhanced interrogation techniques" used overseas. The government chose not to appeal, partly to avoid further delays.
Efforts to bring Mohammed to justice have repeatedly stalled. A 2009 plan to try him in a Manhattan federal courthouse was abandoned after opposition over security and other concerns. A plea agreement announced in 2024 that would have spared him execution in exchange for life imprisonment collapsed and was definitively dead last year.
Joshua Dratel, an attorney involved in ensuring Mohammed has legal representation, said the case is "all contaminated by politics and the lack of accountability on torture." He described the military tribunal system as unable to function efficiently and lacking fidelity to federal courts. David Raskin, who would have led the New York prosecution, wrote in a Washington Post essay that he is confident a civilian trial would have secured a conviction, but predicted "there will never be a completed military commission trial" for Mohammed and the other Sept. 11 defendants.
Terry Strada, whose husband died at the World Trade Center, said families still hope for a trial. "We very much want to see this come to an end at some point. We do want to see justice served," she said. But Strada, national chair of 9/11 Families United, opposes dropping the death penalty, fearing future prisoner swaps. She said execution "fits the crime" and would prevent such an outcome.