🔻Trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused as the “mastermind of the September 11 attacks,” begins in 2028

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom the U.S. government says is one of the chief architects of the September 11 terrorist attacks, is set to go on trial in June 2028, more than a quarter of a century after the attacks.

On Wednesday, a military judge ruled that the trial of him and three other defendants would begin on June 5, 2028. The judge said the prosecutors’ proposed date for 2027 is too early to allow full consideration of the case.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed had previously reached an agreement with prosecutors to plead guilty to his charges—an agreement under which he would not face the death penalty in exchange for admitting his guilt. But a federal appeals court last summer overturned that agreement.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was detained in 2003 and has been held in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility since September 2006. He has previously said that he designed the September 11, 2001 operation “from A to Z.”

Second Lt. Michael E. Schrama, an Air Force judge, on Wednesday set June 5, 2028, as the start date for the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three other defendants.

Waleed bin Attash, Ali Abdulaziz Ali, and Mustafa al Hawsawi are the other three defendants in the case, who are accused of participating in these attacks.

In a court document, the judge wrote that setting this date provides more time to address the case’s legal issues, including resolving disputes over which evidence can be presented in court.

Next month will mark 25 years since the September 11 attacks—during which the hijackers crashed two planes into World Trade Center buildings in New York and the Pentagon building in the state of Virginia. Another hijacked aircraft crashed in a farm field in the state of Pennsylvania.

In total, about 3,000 people were killed in the attacks, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed initiated changes that many believe transformed the global order.

Hashtags: ["BBC Persian"]