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Twenty-five years after nearly 3,000 people were killed on Sept. 11, families waiting to see the accused plotters brought to justice are confronting another extraordinary possibility: They may still never see a verdict.
A military judge has scheduled alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three co-defendants to go on trial June 5, 2028 — nearly 27 years after the attacks. But the date remains tentative, and a recent ruling barring prosecutors from using statements Mohammed made to FBI agents has underscored the legal obstacles still threatening the case.
“It’s like an open sore, and that sore gets even more hurtful when we get to anniversaries,” John Ryan, former chief of Department with the Port Authority Police who spent nine months working on the recovery operation at Ground Zero, told Digital.
Ryan is among the victims’ families and first responders who have watched the prosecution drag through years of litigation over evidence obtained after the defendants were subjected to torture in CIA custody, a collapsed plea agreement, repeated changes in military judges and a mountain of unresolved pretrial motions.
“It’s like an open sore, and that sore gets even more hurtful when we get to anniversaries,” John Ryan, former chief of Department with the Port Authority Police who spent nine months working on the recovery operation at Ground Zero, told Digital. ( Digital)
“Here we are 25 years later, and I’m still involved in this aspect of that here because we still have not convicted or taken to justice the five people that are being held at Guantánamo Bay,” Ryan, who later became a commander with the FBI-led Joint Terrorism Task Force, said. “The planners, KSM and the others that are in custody, are awaiting trial.”
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Mohammed and three other defendants have been held by the U.S. for years without facing trial for their alleged roles in the plot that killed nearly 3,000 people. A fifth defendant, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, is being handled separately after being found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, has been held at Guantánamo Bay since 2003. (AP)
A military judge recently barred prosecutors from using statements Mohammed made to FBI agents in 2007, finding that the statements were tainted by the coercive treatment he had experienced in U.S. custody. The government chose not to appeal the ruling, saying an appeal could jeopardize the June 5, 2028, trial date.
The judge set the trial 18 months after the prosecution’s proposed January 2027 start to give the defense and government time to work through a long list of unresolved legal disputes. He is the fifth military judge to oversee the case since the defendants were arraigned in 2012.
For families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11, the years of delay have become another part of the trauma.
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Sean Passananti, whose father was killed on the 100th floor of the North Tower, said the passage of time has made the case feel increasingly detached from the scale of the crime.
“It feels really like a twilight zone and unbelievable that we have to fight for justice for the worst terrorist attack that ever happened on our soil,” Passananti said. “It doesn’t feel real. It’s unexplainable.”
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Passananti said he has attended the memorial ceremony every year but one since the attacks.
“I wish I wasn’t here, obviously, but I feel like I have to be here every year,” he said.
Sean Passananti, whose father was killed on the 100th floor of the North Tower, said the passage of time has made the case feel increasingly detached from the scale of the crime. ( Digital)
Dennis McGinley, whose older brother Danny worked on the 89th floor of the South Tower, said the delays have kept his family from closing a painful chapter.
“President Trump has a unique, historic opportunity here to be a hero, be our champion, finally close the books on this American nightmare, which is now becoming an American embarrassment,” McGinley said.
McGinley described the families’ grief as an injury that keeps reopening.
“It is like the wound never healed, and every year we get salt poured back into that wound,” he said.
Ryan said he lost 37 police officers he had worked with during his career, along with civilian colleagues at the Port Authority. After the recovery operation, he moved into counterterrorism work. He said he expected the 9/11 case to remain part of his professional life, but not for this long.
“The fact is that they’ve all admitted their involvement, it’s not a question of guilt, it’s just a question of the process and the fact that the process has taken 25 years,” Ryan said.
The case has been moving through the military commissions since the defendants were arraigned in 2012. By then, Mohammed had already spent nearly a decade in U.S. custody.
He was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and held for years at CIA “black sites,” where he was subjected to harsh interrogation techniques, including repeated waterboarding.
Mohammed and the other defendants were transferred to Guantánamo in 2006.
The treatment of the defendants in CIA custody has become one of the central obstacles in the prosecution.
Defense attorneys have argued that statements obtained after the defendants were tortured cannot be considered voluntary. Prosecutors have argued that later statements made to FBI agents by a “clean team” should be admissible.
The recent ruling excluding Mohammed’s 2007 FBI statements dealt another blow to that effort and highlighted a problem that has followed the case for years: whether prosecutors can separate evidence gathered later from the coercive interrogations that came before it.
The case has also been disrupted by changes in judges, the coronavirus pandemic and a failed plea agreement.
In 2024, the defendants reached plea agreements that would have required them to plead guilty in exchange for life sentences rather than face the death penalty. Then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin withdrew the agreements, prompting another round of litigation. A federal appeals court later blocked the defendants from entering guilty pleas under the withdrawn deals.
Years earlier, the Obama administration had tried another route.
In 2009, the administration announced that Mohammed and four other defendants would be prosecuted in federal court in Manhattan. That plan was abandoned after fierce opposition from New York officials and lawmakers who raised security and logistical concerns.
The case was moved back to the military commissions at Guantánamo, where it has remained.
The delays have left the accused plotters aging at a detention complex that has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars while producing no verdict in the 9/11 case.
Dennis McGinley, whose older brother Danny worked on the 89th floor of the South Tower, said the delays have kept his family from closing a painful chapter. ( Digital)
The criminal prosecution is separate from the civil lawsuit that 9/11 families have brought against Saudi Arabia, although the two proceedings intersect in the families’ broader search for a full accounting of the attacks.
The military commission is focused on whether Mohammed and the other defendants planned and carried out the terrorist operation. The civil case examines whether Saudi government employees or agents helped two hijackers establish themselves in the United States.
A trial in the civil case could force testimony and the release of evidence that families believe may clarify how the plot was supported before the attacks. The Saudi-related allegations, however, are not the charges at issue in the Guantánamo prosecution.
Ryan said the passage of time means the case now spans two generations of victims’ families: people who were children when the attacks happened and are now adults, and older parents and grandparents who fear they may never live to see a verdict.
If the current schedule holds, the proceedings would begin June 5, 2028 — almost 27 years after the attacks and 16 years after the defendants were arraigned.
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“Our justice system isn’t designed to work that late,” Ryan said. “It’s designed to produce justice in a fair time. And the emphasis needs to be on the victims as opposed to the five enemy combatants.”
