By Nathaniel "Beltway" Steele
Nearly a quarter-century after the September 11 attacks, the government's case against the man accused of plotting them has hit another wall.
A military judge this week ruled that confessions Khalid Sheikh Mohammed made to FBI agents at Guantanamo Bay were not given voluntarily, and cannot be used against him at trial, according to CBS News. Mohammed is accused of developing the plot to fly hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The ruling pushes the long-delayed prosecution further out, with trial now set for June 2028 — nearly 27 years after the attacks. The case has been mired for years in pretrial disputes over the treatment of detainees, including years of CIA custody before Mohammed's transfer to Guantanamo.
The FBI agents who took those statements are the subject of an upcoming CBS documentary, "Daughters of 9/11," set to air September 11 on CBS and Paramount+, timed to the 25th anniversary of the attacks.
The setback underscores a persistent problem for military prosecutors: evidence gathered from detainees held for years without charge, and reportedly subjected to harsh interrogation, keeps running into voluntariness challenges that federal courts and military commissions alike have struggled to resolve. This report relies on CBS News' account of the ruling; the judge's full written opinion was not independently reviewed here.
Families of the victims, many of whom have waited decades for a trial, now face yet another postponement — a reminder that in this case, as in few others, the wheels of justice have moved at a pace measured in decades, not months.
— Compiled from reporting by CBS News.
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