25 Years After 9/11: Why Has Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Still Not Faced Trial

Nearly twenty-five years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, America is approaching an anniversary few of us ever imagined we would reach without a final resolution in one of the most important terrorism prosecutions in our nation’s history.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man accused of being the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks, still has not gone to trial.

Think about that for a moment.

America went to war after September 11th. We spent trillions of dollars. Thousands of American servicemen and women gave their lives in the wars that followed. We hunted Osama bin Laden for nearly a decade before American forces finally found and killed him in Pakistan.

Yet the prosecution of the man accused of helping plan the attacks remains unresolved.

And his trial is now scheduled for 2028.

If that date holds, we will be approaching 27 years since September 11, 2001, before opening statements even begin.

How in the world did we get here?

Another Legal Setback in the 9/11 Case

The issue is back in the headlines after another significant ruling in the military commission case at Guantánamo Bay.

A military judge recently suppressed statements Mohammed made to FBI investigators in 2007, finding that they could not be considered voluntary.

That is particularly significant because these weren’t statements made during the CIA interrogations for which Mohammed was subjected to waterboarding and other controversial enhanced interrogation techniques.

The FBI interviews came later.

But the judge concluded that Mohammed’s earlier treatment while in CIA custody affected whether his subsequent statements could truly be considered voluntary.

The ruling creates yet another potential legal battle in a prosecution that has already been delayed for years.

And it brings us back to a question that I suspect many Americans are asking:

How can it possibly take nearly three decades to bring this case to trial?

The Torture Question Cannot Simply Be Ignored

There is an important point that needs to be acknowledged.

The United States is a nation of laws.

Defense attorneys have a responsibility to represent their clients, regardless of how terrible the accusations against them may be. The government has an obligation to follow the Constitution and applicable law. Courts have a responsibility to determine whether evidence was obtained legally.

And the CIA’s treatment of Mohammed and other terrorism suspects created enormous legal problems for prosecutors.

Critics of the government’s interrogation program argue that evidence obtained through torture or coercion cannot simply be sanitized by waiting a few years and asking the defendant the same questions again.

That’s a serious legal argument.

But acknowledging that doesn’t require us to accept the idea that 25 or 27 years is a reasonable amount of time to conduct a trial.

Surely the United States of America can protect constitutional principles while also bringing an accused mass murderer to justice within a reasonable period of time.

Those shouldn’t be mutually exclusive ideas.

What About the Victims?

This is the part of the story I believe gets lost amid all the arguments over interrogation techniques, military commissions, federal courts and constitutional law.

There were nearly 3,000 people murdered on September 11th.

Those aren’t merely numbers in a history book.

They were mothers and fathers. Husbands and wives. Sons and daughters. Police officers and firefighters. Military personnel and ordinary Americans who simply went to work that Tuesday morning.

There were children who lost parents on September 11th who are now middle-aged adults.

Parents who lost children have died without ever seeing this prosecution completed.

Families have experienced birthdays, weddings, graduations, grandchildren and decades of anniversaries while the case against the alleged architect of the attacks remains stuck in court.

Justice certainly requires protecting the rights of the accused.

But justice should also mean something for the victims.

Then Came the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Plea Deal

The case became even more controversial in 2024 when Mohammed and two other defendants reached plea agreements that could have allowed them to plead guilty while avoiding the death penalty.

The agreements generated immediate outrage among many 9/11 families and political leaders.

Then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attempted to revoke the deals, setting off yet another round of litigation.

A federal appeals court eventually sided with the government’s effort to block the plea agreements.

That put the possibility of death penalty trials back on the table.

But it also put everyone back into the same legal maze.

More motions.

More hearings.

More appeals.

More delays.

And now we’re looking toward 2028.

Should Foreign Terrorism Suspects Receive Full Constitutional Protections?

This case also raises a much larger question about the constitutional protections afforded to foreign terrorism suspects being held at Guantánamo Bay.

In its 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court ruled that detainees at Guantánamo had a constitutional right to challenge their detention through habeas corpus.

The decision was 5-4.

Justice Antonin Scalia strongly dissented.

Civil libertarians argue that America’s commitment to constitutional rights is most important when dealing with defendants we despise. In their view, our willingness to follow the rule of law is precisely what distinguishes the United States from terrorists.

There is something important in that argument.

America shouldn’t abandon its principles because doing so is convenient.

But there’s another question that deserves an answer:

Does protecting those principles really require nearly three decades before a trial can begin?

That’s where I think the system has failed.

Some of These Problems Were Created by Our Own Government

It’s also important to acknowledge something that may be uncomfortable for supporters of the War on Terror.

The government created some of its own problems.

Decisions made during the chaotic years following September 11th concerning enhanced interrogation, detention and the military commission system have complicated these prosecutions enormously.

Had Mohammed been handled differently after his capture, prosecutors might not still be arguing over the admissibility of evidence more than two decades later.

There is plenty of blame to go around.

The Bush administration made decisions about interrogation and military commissions.

The Obama administration attempted to change course on some of those policies.

Congress became involved.

The Supreme Court became involved.

Different administrations came and went.

Judges changed.

Prosecutors changed.

Defense attorneys filed motions.

Appeals followed.

And the calendar kept moving.

Republican administrations.

Democratic administrations.

Still no completed trial.

What Happens If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Dies First?

There is another possibility that shouldn’t be ignored.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is now in his 60s.

What happens if he dies before this case ever reaches a verdict?

Imagine explaining that to the families.

Imagine saying that the United States fought its longest war, tracked down Osama bin Laden on the other side of the world and killed him — but couldn’t complete the prosecution of the accused architect of September 11th before he died.

That would be an extraordinary failure.

And if prosecutors appeal the latest ruling, we could see even more delays.

June 2028 could become 2029.

Then 2030.

At some point, Americans have every right to ask when enough is enough.

Justice Delayed Is Becoming Justice Denied

This year America marks the 25th anniversary of September 11th.

A generation of Americans has now grown up with no personal memory of that morning.

The Pentagon was rebuilt.

Lower Manhattan was rebuilt.

The World Trade Center site now includes a magnificent memorial to those who died.

Osama bin Laden has been dead for 15 years.

The war in Afghanistan is over.

But the case against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed remains unresolved.

There is something profoundly wrong with that picture.

You don’t have to be Republican or Democrat to see it.

You don’t even have to support the death penalty.

Someone could oppose capital punishment entirely and still believe the 9/11 families deserve a verdict.

America can protect the Constitution.

We can insist that our government obey the law.

We can acknowledge serious mistakes made in the treatment of terrorism suspects after September 11th.

And we can simultaneously say that nearly three decades is far too long to wait for justice.

Those beliefs do not contradict one another.

As we remember September 11th twenty-five years later, perhaps we should spend less time thinking about the terrorists and more time remembering the people whose lives they took.

Nearly 3,000 Americans went to work, boarded airplanes or reported for duty that morning and never came home.

Their families have waited nearly a quarter-century for this case to be resolved.

Now they’re being told the trial could begin in 2028.

Maybe.

After twenty-five years, the families of September 11th deserve better than “maybe.”

 

Watch on YouTube and weigh in with your thoughts and opinions.

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What do you think? Should prosecutors continue pursuing the death penalty against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed if it means potentially years of additional litigation? Or should the government accept a guilty plea guaranteeing life in prison and finally bring this decades-long case to an end?

Leave your thoughts in the comments and share this article with someone who remembers exactly where they were on September 11, 2001.