Politics
9/11 Trial Set For 2028 So Defendants Can Finish Their Retirement Plans
By Sean Vanity, . BSN Network. Satire.
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA, A military judge confirmed this week that the capital trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described architect of the September 11 attacks, along with co-defendants Walid bin Attash, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Ammar al-Baluchi, is now scheduled to begin in June 2028. The attacks occurred in September 2001. Readers with functioning calendars will note that this represents a gap of approximately twenty-seven years.
For context, a child born on September 12, 2001, in the immediate emotional aftermath of the worst terrorist attack in American history, will be old enough to rent a car, join the military, and develop a drinking problem before this trial reaches opening arguments.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has been held at Guantanamo since 2006, has now been in pretrial proceedings longer than the entirety of World War Two, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the period of time it takes a Time Warner Cable technician to show up within a four-hour window. He reportedly spends his days reading, praying, and presumably watching the American legal system do to due process what he once did to lower Manhattan.
The delays, which have accumulated like a geological layer cake of procedural sediment, stem from issues including the admissibility of evidence obtained through CIA enhanced interrogation, attorney conflicts of interest, competency hearings, classified discovery disputes, and, in at least one memorable stretch, a military judge who recused himself after accepting a job with the very prosecution office trying the case. Legal scholars describe this as, quote, not ideal.
A Pentagon spokesperson issued a statement calling the 2028 timeline a reflection of the military commissions system's commitment to thorough and deliberate justice. When asked what distinguished thorough and deliberate justice from simply not finishing, the spokesperson said the department had no further comment at this time.
Critics of the military commissions process, including several former prosecutors and defense attorneys who have rotated through the case over the years like exhausted relay runners, argue that the system was designed to produce legitimacy and has instead produced a waiting room. One former commission judge, speaking on background, described the proceedings as the legal equivalent of a restaurant that has been seating you for two decades and has yet to bring the menu.
Families of September 11 victims have watched all of this with a specific variety of despair that does not yet have a clinical name but probably should. Some have stopped attending hearings. Some attend every one. A few have aged from young parents in their thirties to grandparents in their sixties while the government has spent the intervening years arguing about what counts as a fair question.
Mohammed himself, who arrived at Guantanamo after being waterboarded one hundred and eighty-three times by the CIA, has periodically indicated a desire to plead guilty and accept execution. The United States government has responded to this offer by continuing pretrial proceedings. It is not entirely clear who is trolling whom at this point.
Ammar al-Baluchi has raised ongoing concerns about cognitive damage from his own interrogation, concerns that have themselves generated years of competency litigation. Walid bin Attash has fired his attorneys more than once. Ramzi bin al-Shibh has alleged that he is subjected to noise and vibrations in his cell designed to disrupt his sleep, a claim the government denies, though it did take several years to deny it.
The June 2028 date is, legal observers note, contingent on no further pretrial motions, no additional recusals, no appellate interruptions, no classified evidence complications, and no acts of God, man, or the United States Court of Military Commission Review.
So, June 2028.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/khalid-sheikh-mohammed-911-plotters-trial/