Trial for Men Charged With Plotting Sept. 11 Attacks Is Set for 2021

WASHINGTON — This article was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

A military judge on Friday set Jan. 11, 2021, as the start of the joint death-penalty trial at Guantánamo Bay of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four men charged as plotters of the attacks that killed 2,976 people in New York, Washington and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001.

The judge, Col. W. Shane Cohen of the Air Force, set the date for the start of the selection of a military jury at the war court compound at the Navy base in Cuba called Camp Justice.

It was included in a 10-page trial scheduling order that set deadlines toward reaching that trial date. The timetable includes a list of materials the prosecutors must provide the defense teams by Oct. 1, as the first step to achieving that start date.

This marks the first time that a trial judge in the case actually set a start-of-trial date, despite requests by prosecutors since 2012 to two earlier judges to do so.

The five men were arraigned in this case on May 5, 2012, at Guantánamo inside a special national security courtroom that lets people sitting behind the court in a spectator’s gallery watch live but hear the proceedings on a 40-second delay.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.

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