The facts
Twenty-five years after the attacks, the alleged plotters have not faced a trial. On August 26, Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Schrama ordered jury selection for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three co-defendants, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, to begin June 5, 2028 at Guantanamo Bay. Reuters and AP reported he rejected prosecutors' request to start in January 2027, saying there was not enough time to finish pretrial fights over evidence. A 2021 trial date was canceled. The 2028 date can slip again.
Mohammed, a Pakistani Muslim and alleged al Qaeda operator, was captured in Pakistan on March 1, 2003. He is accused of developing and directing the hijacking plot. Ramzi bin al-Shibh was ruled mentally unfit and is out. CBS reported 2024 plea deals that would have taken death off the table were later thrown out. Gordon Felt, whose brother died on Flight 93, told CBS there is "significant frustration" the case is still pretrial.
Today families read 2,983 names in New York. Mohammed's military jury is penciled in for a Monday in 2028.
Our take
America says this man designed the murders. It grabbed him in 2003. It has had the alleged Muslim 9/11 bomber in a cage long enough for the attacks to turn 25, and a colonel just ruled that trying him in 2027 would be hasty. Hasty. Twenty-six years is apparently too soon to ask a jury to look at him. The common suspect is aging in Cuba while lawyers fight over which of his statements count.
Gitmo was sold as the grown-up table. It became a storage unit with a bar exam. The 2021 date died. The plea deals died. Prosecutors asked for next January. The judge added 18 months and called it process. Felt's brother is dead. Felt can be furious. The calendar is the embarrassment. 2028 is a year you put on a schoolkid, not on the person you have called the architect since Bush still had a pulse.
If 2028 slips, and AP says it might, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gets another birthday in a tropical cage and America holds another never-forget ceremony. They can read the names every year. They still cannot get the alleged bomber in front of a jury before the attacks turn 27.
