KSM gets a trial date - finally - but families have heard that before

Twenty-five years after 2,977 people were killed in New York, at the Pentagon, and in a field outside Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the man the U.S. government calls the principal architect of those attacks still has not faced a jury. That changes - on paper, at least - with a single scheduling order signed twelve days ago at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Military Judge Lt. Col. Michael Schrama set the date on Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026, rejecting prosecutors' request to begin the trial in January 2027. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial is now scheduled to begin on June 5, 2028. The ruling lands on this week's 25th anniversary of the attacks. It has received relatively little attention in a capital consumed by the Iran conflict and the budget fight - but for the families of victims, for civil liberties lawyers, and for the federal officials who have spent two decades failing to bring the case to court, it is the most consequential judicial development in the 9/11 docket in years.

Mohammed will be prosecuted alongside Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, all held at the U.S. naval base and charged in connection with the attacks. Mohammed faces charges including murder in violation of the law of war, attacking civilians and civilian objects, hijacking aircraft, terrorism, and destruction of property.

Why the judge pushed the date back

The prosecution wanted January 2027. Schrama said no - not because of a defense maneuver, but because the judge himself concluded the docket was not ready. Schrama turned down the prosecution's bid to open the trial in early 2027, arguing that timeline wouldn't leave enough room to work through the disputes. In his order, which is publicly available at the military commissions' official website, he wrote that "a realistic trial date must account for the hearing and resolution of pretrial evidentiary and compliance motions, including the FBI LHM suppression motions."

Those FBI Letterhead Memoranda - statements taken from Mohammed and co-defendants after their transfer from CIA black sites - sit at the center of a fight that has outlasted administrations from both parties. Defense lawyers have argued that the holdup comes from what they say are the government's efforts to hide details of torture used against detainees at secret CIA prisons before they were transferred to Guantánamo Bay. A Senate report from 2014 found that the CIA had used what it called "enhanced interrogation techniques" against Mohammed and other conspirators, including waterboarding Mohammed 183 times in what was described as "a series of near-drownings."

The start date is nearly 17 months later than the prosecution had requested. That gap tells its own story.

A timeline of delays

This case has a history of optimistic schedules that collapsed. Pretrial litigation ran from 2019 through 2024, focused particularly on torture, classified evidence, and the admissibility of statements. In July 2024, Mohammed and two co-defendants agreed to plead guilty in exchange for life imprisonment rather than face a potential death sentence. In August 2024, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin attempted to revoke the plea agreement, triggering another round of litigation. In 2025, a federal appeals court ruled that Austin had the authority to reject the plea agreement, effectively putting the case back on the trial track.

The date does not guarantee that the trial will actually begin as scheduled. Major pretrial disputes remain, including battles over evidence, classified information, and statements obtained during years of CIA detention and harsh interrogation.

The result is an extraordinary legal paradox: the United States captured the alleged architect of 9/11 in 2003, but almost 23 years later the case was still in the pretrial stage. If Judge Schrama's schedule holds, opening arguments would begin on June 5, 2028, more than 26 years and eight months after the attacks.

What Washington is doing now

The War Department - which, under the current administration's reorganization, has taken over functions formerly housed at the Pentagon - has already begun logistics for the next round of proceedings. The War Department has invited media to cover pretrial proceedings in the case of United States v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarek Bin 'Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi. Hearings before the June 2028 trial date are expected to continue resolving the suppression motions that Schrama cited in his order.

On Capitol Hill, the KSM docket barely registers publicly amid the Iran war debate and the approaching December spending deadline. But for members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees and the Judiciary Committees, the commission's trajectory matters - it is, after all, a U.S. government prosecution carried out under a legal framework Congress created, modified, and has been asked to revisit multiple times over two decades.

The Iran war is simultaneously complicating the broader Guantanamo picture. Eighteen U.S. troops have died since fighting with Iran broke out earlier this year, but four have died since July 17. U.S. forces have also suffered nearly 500 injuries, with 100 of those coming in the past two weeks, according to the Pentagon. The military is under strain. Whether that affects the commission's staffing, logistics, or political salience in the months ahead is an open question that defense lawyers and victim advocates are already tracking.

What the families face

For families of the victims, the date offers a possible path toward accountability - but after repeated abandoned trial dates and legal reversals, there is little guarantee that the proceedings will reach a verdict on schedule.

That skepticism is well-founded. At least two previous trial dates in this case were abandoned before proceedings began. The 2024 guilty pleas - which, for a brief moment, looked like the end - were yanked away within days. The case has been stalled for years by disputes over evidence obtained while the men were held in CIA prisons and subjected to torture. No senior official has been held accountable for those interrogation programs. The defendants have now been at Guantanamo for 20 years.

The proceedings will be transmitted to a closed-circuit television site at Fort Meade, Maryland, at the Expeditionary Legal Complex located at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, allowing some victim family members to watch without traveling to Cuba.

What to Watch

• Suppression motions on FBI statements. Judge Schrama's order makes clear these must be resolved before trial can begin. Oral arguments on those motions will be the single most important procedural event between now and June 2028. Watch for the War Department's next media invitation to Guantanamo to signal when those hearings are scheduled.
• Whether any co-defendant renews a plea push. Mohammed and two of his co-defendants struck a deal in 2024 that would have spared them the possibility of the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea. With that door closed by the appeals court, defense teams may seek alternative arrangements. Any such motion would immediately reshape the docket.
• Congressional oversight. With the NDAA debate ongoing and the Iran war consuming Pentagon bandwidth, watch for whether Armed Services or Judiciary members press the War Department on commission funding levels and the 2028 schedule's feasibility at upcoming hearings.
• The September 11 anniversary effect. Today marks 25 years since the attacks. Victim families and advocacy groups have used past anniversaries to push both parties toward a resolution. Whether that pressure produces any legislative response or White House statement in the coming days will be worth monitoring.

Sources: NBC News | Al Jazeera | Gulf News | UPI | Military Commissions Trial Judiciary (primary source - scheduling order, Aug. 26, 2026) | U.S. Department of War press advisory | NewsNation