25 Years After 9/11, No Verdict and a 2028 Trial Date

Twenty-five years ago this morning, nearly 3,000 people were killed in the worst terror attack on American soil. Today, family members gathered on the Memorial plaza in lower Manhattan to read the names aloud, and the man accused of planning all of it sat in a cell at Guantanamo Bay, still waiting for a trial. Folks, that is the hard truth on this anniversary: a quarter century later, there has still been no verdict.

25 Years After 9/11, No Verdict and a 2028 Trial Date

New York - The National September 11 Memorial & Museum held its annual commemoration ceremony on the Memorial plaza in lower Manhattan, where family members read aloud the names of the 2,983 men, women and children killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the Feb. 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing, according to the memorial. The program began at 8:30 a.m., with the first moment of silence at 8:46 a.m., the memorial said. This year the ceremony observed seven moments of silence, one more than the six it has held for nearly 25 years, with the added moment honoring the thousands whose lives were cut short by illnesses linked to the toxic aftermath of the attacks, according to USA Today and the memorial.

A Quarter Century Without a Verdict

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in March 2003, according to The Associated Press. He is accused of developing and directing the plot to crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, while a fourth hijacked plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, the AP reported. He was held more than three years in secret prisons in other countries, then brought to the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on Sept. 5, 2006, according to the AP.

He is now before the fifth judge to handle his case, according to ThePrint. That is more than two decades since his capture, and the case is still stuck in pretrial fights over what evidence can even be used.

The Confession Prosecutors Gave Up On

In late August 2026, Air Force Lt. Col. Michael A. Schrama, the military judge, ruled that prosecutors could not use an alleged confession Mohammed made to the FBI in 2007, deeming it tainted because he was subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques" overseas, including waterboarding, according to the AP. Then the government decided not to appeal that ruling. Prosecutors' liaison to victims' families wrote in a letter on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026, that "An appeal could jeopardize the hard-earned June 5, 2028, trial date," as reported by the New York Post and Fox News.

Look at the timing. The New York Post reported that the letter went to victims' families exactly a week before the 25th anniversary. So the people who lost husbands, wives, parents and children learned, seven days before this morning's ceremony, that the government would rather protect a court date than fight for the evidence.

A military commission courtroom stands empty. (Global 1 News)

The Trial Date Nobody Trusts

Schrama set a June 5, 2028 trial date for Mohammed and three alleged accomplices: Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, according to the AP. The AP reported that the 2028 date is 18 months later than the January 2027 start prosecutors had requested, and that Schrama wrote more time is needed to resolve pretrial disputes, including disagreements over what evidence can be presented.

A trial was previously scheduled in 2021 but was later cancelled, the AP reported. The AP also reported that the 2028 date depends on the case hitting deadlines and milestones and could be delayed again. The AP noted that the outcome rests on the case clearing every one of those hurdles.

The Torture Ruling That Reshaped the Case

Why was the confession thrown out? Because of how it was obtained. A U.S. Senate report pointed to Mohammed's extended torture in CIA custody, including 183 sessions of waterboarding, according to The Associated Press. That record is why military judge Air Force Lt. Col. Michael A. Schrama suppressed his 2007 FBI statements in late August 2026, citing the coercion.

ThePrint reported that the case against the alleged plotters, trainers and financiers held at Guantanamo is already starting to fray around that record. In his judgment in the case of co-defendant Ammar al-Baluchi, Schrama wrote that the goal of the program was to condition him through torture and other inhumane and coercive methods to become compliant during any government questioning, adding that the program worked, as reported by the New York Times and cited by ThePrint. In the USS Cole case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, military judge Colonel Lanny D'Acosta noted that al-Nashiri had been conditioned by his long experience of having to choose between extreme pain and self-incrimination, after interrogations in 2003-2004, ThePrint reported.

The Plea Deal That Died

Mohammed and two co-defendants reached a plea agreement with the Biden administration in 2024 that would have spared them the death penalty and stipulated life sentences without parole, according to the AP. The AP reported that the deal also would have obligated the men to answer lingering questions from victims' families.

It began to collapse shortly after it was announced in 2024 and finally died for good in 2025, when a federal appeals court threw it out, after the Biden administration repudiated it, the AP reported. So the families lost the one path that might have forced answers, and they got a trial date instead.

The Civilian Trial That Washington Abandoned

In 2009, then-Attorney General Eric Holder announced plans to try Mohammed and four other men in a Manhattan courthouse just blocks from the World Trade Center site, according to the AP. Then-President Barack Obama said Mohammed would face "the most exacting demands of justice," the AP reported.

Opposition arose almost immediately. Critics said Mohammed would use a trial as a platform and cited security concerns, the AP reported. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, called the plan unwise and said it showed "a lack of concern for the rights of the public," according to the AP. Plans for a civilian trial were dropped. Joshua Dratel, an attorney who played a part in assuring Mohammed has proper legal representation, called the aborted 2009 civilian plan "a charade in many respects," according to the AP.

What the Families Are Left Holding

Terry Strada, whose husband Tom died at the World Trade Center and who serves as national chair of 9/11 Families United, told the AP: "We very much want to see this come to an end at some point. We do want to see justice served. It's just as important as 25 years ago."

Strada told the AP she would rather have Mohammed rot at Guantanamo Bay indefinitely than back a resolution dropping the death penalty as a possibility, and that she worries a future U.S. leader could swap him for Americans held prisoner elsewhere. The death penalty, she said, "fits the crime and it would prevent that from ever happening. And that's important to me."

One World Trade Center rises above lower Manhattan. (Global 1 News)

Twenty-Five Years Later, What This Means Now

Dratel told the AP: "It's all contaminated by politics and the lack of accountability on torture." He said the military tribunal system has proven to be a worse solution, unable to function efficiently, without a proper structure and without fidelity to federal courts. "Each time you reach an impasse, no one knows what to do," he told the AP.

David Raskin, a Washington lawyer who would have led the government's prosecution of Mohammed in New York if it had not been abandoned, wrote in a Washington Post essay published Wednesday, Sept. 9, 2026, that he is confident a civilian trial would have ended in a conviction. The military commissions, he wrote, "became a defense lawyer's dream," beset by "endless litigation over their legality and procedures." His conclusion: "I predict there will never be a completed military commission trial for Mohammed and the other Sept. 11 defendants."

The rest of the case is just as tangled. Abdul Aziz Ali, Mohammed's nephew, had his confessions thrown out last year by military judge Colonel Matthew McCall because of CIA torture, according to ThePrint and the New York Times. Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi are waiting for McCall to rule on their confessions, made under similar circumstances, ThePrint reported. Ramzi bin al-Shibh, the fifth alleged facilitator, was found to be suffering symptoms of psychosis and deemed unfit to stand trial, and his case has been separated from the other four, according to ThePrint and the New York Times.

Why the Delay Reaches Beyond One Defendant

The quarter-century limbo costs more than this single case. Former prosecutor David Raskin wrote in The Washington Post that the result of the abandoned 2009 civilian trial was a moral and legal limbo that persists more than two decades later. Praveen Swami, a Contributing Editor at ThePrint, wrote that America will come away from these trials, whatever their outcome, with its moral standing severely damaged. Swami also wrote that al-Qaeda and its successors today control far more territory than they did on 9/11, and have worn out the Western nation-states that vowed to annihilate the jihadists.

ThePrint noted that U.S. federal courts had previously convicted perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, including Mohammed Salameh, Mahmud Abouhalima, Nidal Ayyad and Ahmed Ajaj; a second trial targeted the blind cleric Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman; and Ramzi Yousef was convicted in the Bojinka case. All 19 hijackers were killed on Sept. 11, 2001. Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan in 2011; his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in Kabul in 2022, ThePrint reported.

What You Can Do

Folks, this is not a story you have to take my word on. The filings are public. Follow the military commission filings at the Office of Military Commissions and read the scheduling orders yourself. Back 9/11 Families United, the group Terry Strada leads, and listen to what the families are actually asking for instead of what politicians say they deserve. Read David Raskin's essay in The Washington Post and weigh his prediction against the record.

And stay vigilant. Twenty-five years is long enough to forget how this case got here, and forgetting is how it stays here. Nearly 3,000 people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, according to the AP, and the memorial reads 2,983 names including the 1993 bombing victims. They deserved a verdict. Keep asking why they still do not have one.

By Jessica Ali, Staff Writer

This article was produced with AI-assisted research and editorial support. Sources: The Associated Press, The New York Post, Fox News, The Washington Post, ThePrint, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, and USA Today.