A US military judge has ordered Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, to stand trial in June 2028.
The order comes after years of legal deadlock surrounding what the US government has described as “the most egregious criminal act on American soil in modern history”.
US Air Force judge Lt Col Michael Schrama ruled on Wednesday that the trial for Mr Mohammed, accused of plotting the attacks, and three other co-defendants would start on June 5, 2028. Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Al Hawsawi were listed in the court document as alleged accomplices.
US authorities have spent more than two decades trying to bring the case to trial.
The 2028 date is 18 months later than prosecutors requested. Lt Col Schrama rejected their proposal to open the trial in January 2027, saying that would leave too little time for the “resolution of pretrial evidentiary and compliance motions”.
The trial could still be delayed if pretrial deadlines are not met. A previous trial scheduled for 2021 was cancelled.
Mr Mohammed is the most well-known inmate at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, which was set up in 2002 by George W Bush, the US president at the time, to house foreign militant suspects following the September 11 attacks.
He is accused of orchestrating the plot to fly hijacked passenger jetliners into the World Trade Centre in New York City and into the Pentagon in 2001. The 9/11 attacks killed nearly 3,000 people.
A US appeals court last year refused to allow Mr Mohammed and two of his co-defendants to plead guilty under a 2024 agreement that would have spared them the death penalty.
The three men had “agreed to plead guilty to all of the charged offences, including the murder of the 2,976 people listed in the charge sheet”, according to a letter signed by Adm Aaron Rugh, the chief prosecutor for military commissions.
The July 2024 agreement was revoked the following month by then defence secretary Lloyd Austin, amid criticism of the deal from Republican lawmakers. The matter was taken to the appeals court after lawyers for the defendants objected.
Under Mr Schrama's 11-page order, the 2028 court proceedings will open with the selection of a panel consisting entirely of service members who will act as the jury to hear the case, according to the rules of military justice.
Opening statements will commence 30 calendar days after the panel is seated, followed by presentation of the prosecution's evidence, after which the defendants may file motions for findings of not guilty.
The order gives both sides opportunities to argue those motions and rebut one another, and for prosecutors to reopen their case. The defence presents its principal evidence starting 60 calendar days after the prosecution concludes its case.
The trial ends with a sentencing phase.
