A US military judge has set 5 June 2028 as the trial date for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. The date, announced on 27 August, falls 18 months later than prosecutors had requested, with the judge citing the need to resolve numerous outstanding pretrial disputes — including the deeply contested question of what evidence can be admitted in court. The 2028 date could still slip further if pretrial deadlines are not met.

Mohammed, a Kuwaiti-born mechanical engineer of Pakistani descent who turned 61 this year, has been held at Guantánamo Bay — the US military detention facility on the southeastern tip of Cuba — since 2006, three years after his capture in Pakistan in March 2003. He is accused of developing and directing the plot to hijack passenger aircraft and crash them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth hijacked plane came down in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers mounted a revolt against the hijackers. Mohammed himself declared at a military hearing in 2007 that he was responsible for the 9/11 operation