Death-penalty trial for accused 9/11 mastermind Sheikh Mohammed in 2021

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was first picked up by the CIA in the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, after a joint operation by the US agency and Pakistan’s ISI 2003. He was moved to overseas prison ‘black sites’ in Afghanistan, Poland and finally, Guantanamo Bay.

In 2004, the 9/11 Commission Report named him as “the principal architect of the 9/11 attacks”. But, at Guantanamo in 2007, he confessed to having masterminded the 1993 World Trade Centre bombing that killed six, the failed 2001 shoe bombing attempt, the 2002 Bali night club bombings that killed 202, the murder of Daniel Pearl — and the September 11 attacks.

In addition, he confessed to having plotted to assassinate a list of figures including Pope John Paul II, former US Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and former Pakistani president Pervez Musharaff.

The next year, Sheikh Mohammed was charged with war crimes and 2,973 counts of murder. Along with four others accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks, the death penalty has long been assumed the likeliest sentence.

Now, 12 years after his infamous confession — which drew criticism for the alleged use of torture in getting it out of him — a military judge has set Jan 11, 2021, as the date for his death-penalty trial. The trial will take place at Guantanamo Bay itself.

The long-wound trial of Sheikh Mohammed has taken place amidst several changes to the US legal system. Prisoners like Sheikh Mohammed and the others who end up in Guantanamo Bay were at once treated as aliens and as enemy combatants, lacking the rights of Americans, but also lacking the legal ability to do anything about it.

In 2008, Boumediene v. Bush established that such prisoners would also be entitled to habeas corpus rights, and put to question the legalities of processes that were used on many prisoners in the early days of the War on Terror.

In 2009, a government memo was released that showed that Sheikh Mohammed had been waterboarded 183 times in a single month in 2003.

Recently, on August 20, a military judge in the case of United States of America vs Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih, Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ail, Mustafa Ahmed Adam and Al Hawsawi ruled that the statements given by Sheikh Mohammed to the FBI following his detention and under torture would be thrown out.

Nonetheless, Sheikh Mohammed’s has confessed numerous times since 2002, and as late at 2012, expressed no remorse for his actions. The implications of his ongoing trial are still wide-ranging.

As recently as July of 2019, he expressed his willingness to assist a civil lawsuit against Saudi Arabia by the families of 9/11 victims, on condition that the death penalty against him be dropped.