Legal maze at Guantanamo: 9/11 trial set to open June 5, 2028
A military judge set the trial date after deeming a January 2027 start unrealistic because of unresolved procedural disputes and evidentiary fights.
The military judge presiding over the long-delayed prosecution of the 11 September attacks set a new start date: the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three co‑defendants will begin on June 5, 2028, at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay.
Judge Michael Shrama rejected a request from prosecutors to open the main trial in January 2027, calling that timetable unrealistic given the volume of unresolved procedural questions and legal appeals that remain. Prosecutors had urged an early 2027 start in an effort to bring closure to what has become the longest pretrial process in modern U.S. history.
More time to decide what evidence will be allowed
The judge’s order gives both defence teams and military prosecutors additional months to complete the evidentiary hearings that will determine which materials may be presented at trial. Those hearings are crucial to narrowing disputes about admissibility and shaping the case that jurors will hear.
At the heart of the multi‑decade delay are interrogation methods used by the CIA after the suspects were captured in 2003. Defence lawyers have long sought to exclude confessions, arguing that the accused were subjected to systematic torture in secret facilities around the world before being transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.
U.S. military courts bar evidence obtained through coercion, creating a legal impasse over whether later statements made to FBI agents are legally valid or are the direct product of earlier mistreatment.
An attempt to resolve the case last year through a plea agreement collapsed after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin cancelled the deal following outcry in Congress and among some victims’ families. The proposed settlement would have spared the defendants the death penalty in exchange for guilty pleas and life sentences.
With the new calendar, the prosecution of the planners of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people now moves into its third decade without a first‑instance verdict.
Photo: Pentagon / Zuma Press / Profimedia
