The new trial date exposes sharply different ideas of justice: prosecutors had pressed for an earlier start, while defense lawyers point to unresolved questions over detention and evidence, and some victims’ relatives say delay should not rule out the harshest possible punishment.

More than two decades after the September 11 attacks, the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three co-defendants is now scheduled to begin on 5 June 2028 at Guantánamo Bay. The date offers a formal path forward, but also underscores how pretrial disputes have kept one of the US’s most consequential criminal cases from reaching a verdict.

Military judge Lt Col Michael A. Schrama rejected prosecutors’ proposed 2027 timetable, concluding that the court needed more time for disputes over admissible evidence and other procedural issues. His order said a “realistic trial date” must allow for the hearing and resolution of pretrial evidentiary and compliance motions.¹ The four defendants face charges connected to the plot that killed nearly 3,000 people.

The prosecution’s push for an earlier trial contrasts with the defense position that the process cannot be separated from the defendants’ treatment in CIA custody and at Guantánamo. Lawyers for Mohammed have argued that the government delayed proceedings while questions remained about evidence obtained after coercive interrogation; a 2014 Senate report recorded 183 instances of waterboarding involving Mohammed.² Those disputes, along with claims of national-security secrecy limiting defense access to information, have become central to arguments over whether a capital trial can be fair.

For some relatives of those killed, however, the years of litigation have reinforced rather than softened their demand for a full trial. Terry Strada, who lost her husband in the attacks and leads 9/11 Families United, said she was prepared to wait for “the punishment to fit the crime. And that would be the death penalty.”¹

A previous plea agreement that would have exchanged guilty pleas for life sentences was later blocked, leaving the death-penalty case intact. The 2028 schedule may settle the calendar, but not the competing questions of accountability, due process and whether the military commission can finally bring the case to trial.³