Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will go to trial on June 5, 2028, after a military judge set the long-awaited date on Wednesday in the case tied to the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The ruling also covers three alleged co-conspirators who will stand trial with him.
The date matters because it locks in the next major step in a case that has moved slowly for years and that remains one of the most closely watched proceedings linked to the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. Mohammed and the three other defendants have been held at Guantánamo Bay since 2003.
Lt. Col. Michael Schrama did not accept prosecutors' request to begin proceedings in January 2027. Instead, he set the trial more than a year later, a choice that pushes the first day of trial deep into 2028 and leaves the government waiting longer than it wanted.
That gap is the clearest sign that the case is still being managed on the court's timetable, not the prosecution's. For Mohammed, who has been in custody at Guantánamo Bay for more than two decades, the new date gives the case a fixed horizon after years of delay, but it also means the legal fight remains far from over.
The next confirmed step is June 5, 2028. Until then, the case stays in place as one of the most consequential war-on-terror prosecutions still working its way toward a courtroom finish.
