WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has rejected Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s effort to reinstate a contentious plea deal from 2024 that would have prevented him from facing the death penalty for orchestrating the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Commonly known as “KSM,” Mohammed is scheduled for a military trial starting June 5, 2028, after spending over 20 years at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
There were no dissenting opinions noted regarding the court’s dismissal of his case. Justice Brett Kavanaugh recused himself, as he was part of the White House counsel’s office during the time of Mohammed’s capture in 2003.
KSM, along with two co-defendants — Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi — had reached an agreement on July 31, 2024, to plead guilty and accept a life sentence without the chance of parole for their involvement in the attacks that took the lives of 2,977 individuals at the World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
However, just two days later, in response to public outrage, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin annulled the deal, stating it required authorization solely from the Pentagon chief.
A split panel from the DC appeals court upheld Austin’s decision last year, leaving the Supreme Court as KSM’s final avenue for appeal.
The trial has been postponed for nearly 25 years, primarily due to ongoing disputes surrounding the admissibility of evidence obtained from the trio during “enhanced interrogation” by the CIA.
This legal back-and-forth resulted in charges against Mohammed and four others in 2008, stemming from their reassessment four years later.
As recent as August, a military judge dismissed statements KSM made regarding the attacks to the FBI in 2007, four years post-capture, on the grounds that they were not given voluntarily.
Mohammed is labeled as the “principal architect of the 9/11 attacks” in a bipartisan commission report from 2004 and faces charges including 2,977 counts of murder, terrorism, and violations of war laws.
In a military hearing in 2007, he reportedly stated, “I was responsible for the 9/11 operation, from A to Z,” expressing regret for the deaths of children in the attacks while insisting, “I don’t like to kill people.”
