Trial remains elusive for purported mastermind accused of plotting 9/11 attacks

NEW YORK (AP) — Two decades after U.S. authorities locked Khalid Sheikh Mohammed away at a military detention center in Cuba, the purported mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks sometimes seems barely any closer to being put on trial than the day he arrived.

A judge recently set a 2028 date for Mohammed to finally be tried before a military tribunal, but some lawyers predict it will never happen — not that year or any other year. They say the maze of legal issues that arose because Mohammed was tortured following his 2003 capture in Pakistan is too twisted to ever be straightened out. A fleeting bid to put him on trial in a civilian court in New York City was shouted down years ago over security concerns.

A plea agreement that would have kept Mohammed imprisoned for life, but spared him from a possible execution, began to collapse shortly after it was announced in 2024, and finally died for good last year. “It’s all contaminated by politics and the lack of accountability on torture,” said Joshua Dratel, an attorney who played a part in assuring that Mohammed has proper legal representation. military judge who set a June 5, 2028, trial date for Mohammed and three others charged in the Sept.

11 attacks ruled that prosecutors could not use an alleged confession he made to the FBI in 2007. Those statements were deemed tainted because Mohammed was subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques” overseas, including the simulated drowning technique called waterboarding. While the ruling was a blow to the prosecution, the U.S.

government decided not to appeal, in part because doing so could have further delayed a possible trial. Meanwhile, Mohammed remains jailed in Guantanamo Bay, where he was brought on Sept. 5, 2006, following more than three years in secret prisons in other countries.

Victims’ families still hope a trial will happen Terry Strada, whose husband, Tom, died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, said that she and other people who lost family members still hope a trial will someday happen. “We very much want to see this come to an end at some point.