Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794), father of modern Criminal Law, stated that “the more just and useful the penalty is, the sooner it is and the closer it is to the committed crime.”
Read more El Camp Nou is flooded with estelades to defend the freedom to display independence flags
With less than two weeks to go before the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, which caused the collapse of the Twin Towers in southern Manhattan and nearly 3,000 deaths across New York, Virginia (Pentagon), and Pennsylvania, a military judge set Wednesday, June 5, 2028, as the date for the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and three other men accused of conspiring to carry out the 9/11 attack.
Lieutenant Colonel Michael Schrama of the Air Force, judge of the military commissions, provisionally scheduled this oral hearing for a date about 20 years after Mohammed, considered the mastermind behind these attacks under the inspiration of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, and his co-defendants first appeared before the court in 2008. It will have been 27 years since this tragedy that changed the world, if the schedule is finally met.
Among thousands of detainees, five men were initially brought before the Guantánamo court in 2008. Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a Yemeni citizen accused of assisting the attackers by organizing logistics, was later declared mentally unfit to stand trial due to post-traumatic stress disorder caused by “enhanced interrogations,” i.e., torture, carried out by the U.S. military. As a result, his case was separated.
Mohammed and two other defendants, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi (the fourth implicated is Ammar al-Baluchi, nephew of the alleged mastermind), have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a 2024 decision by Lloyd J. Austin III, then Secretary of Defense, which blocked a plea deal that would have allowed them to serve life sentences instead of facing a trial where the death penalty is sought.
Read more Raphinha and Fermín lead Barça in a full display by Lamine against Athletic Club
That agreement was initially seen as a way to move forward and close the case, which, according to legal experts, will continue to be hindered by the treatment the defendants received at the hands of their interrogators.
But the agreement was harshly criticized by victims’ families and advocacy organizations that have been waiting for justice for decades.
Terry Strada, leader of the group 9/11 Families United and widow whose husband died in the attacks, has long advocated for the defendants to be tried despite the legal obstacles that still persist.
In 2024, after the deal with the alleged perpetrators was withdrawn, Strada told AP that she was willing to wait years for them to receive “a punishment commensurate with the crime and that would be the death penalty.”
