US sets 2021 trial date for alleged 9/11 mastermind

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - A military judge set Jan. 11, 2021 for alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four suspected accomplices to stand trial, according to a report published Friday.

Air Force Col. W. Shane Cohen set that date for the selection of the military jury to begin, according to the New York Times.

Military court proceedings will take place at Camp Justice, the military court portion of the notorious naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Mohammed and the four other men were originally arraigned in May 2012. Prosecutors had been asking for a judge to set a trial date, but two judges declined to do so, according to the Times.

Slain al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden claimed responsibility for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York's Twin Towers as well as the attack that day on the Pentagon.

Those attacks were carried out using three passenger planes hijacked by al-Qaeda operatives. A fourth plane, bound for either the White House or the Capitol, crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to retake it from the hijackers.

Nearly 3,000 people were killed, including citizens of 77 countries.

Bin Laden was killed 10 years after the attacks in a covert operation carried out in Abbottabad, Pakistan at a compound where he was holed up.

Mohammed is reportedly open to cooperating with victims of the attacks in a lawsuit they are bringing against Saudi Arabia.

He offered his support if the U.S. federal government drops the death penalty in the trial in a military tribunal, the Wall Street Journal reported in July.

The lawsuit accuses the Saudi government of helping to coordinate the devastating tragedy. Riyadh has denied any role in the attacks.

A previous attempt to broker a plea agreement with Mohammed and the four other defendants was scrapped over concerns that dropping the death penalty would serve as an official censure of the government's torture of the detainees.

Mohammed was captured in a joint CIA operation alongside Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency in the city of Rawalpindi in March 2003. He was then transferred to CIA black sites where he was repeatedly subjected to interrogation methods criticized as torture.