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A US Air Force judge on Wednesday ordered Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and three co-defendants to go on trial before a military tribunal in June 2028.
The trial-scheduling order entered by Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Michael Schrama marked the latest milestone in a military prosecution beset by two decades of legal deadlock surrounding the four detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Last month, a US appeals court refused to allow Mohammed and two of his co-defendants to plead guilty under agreements that would have spared them the death penalty. The appellate decision reversed decisions of a military judge and the US Court of Military Commission Review in support of the plea deal.
The agreement had been offered last year and accepted by the official who oversees the Pentagon’s Guantanamo war court, only to be revoked last August by then-Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin amid criticism of the deal from Republican lawmakers.
