Facing the '9/11 Mastermind' in Court 20 Years After Capture

Inside the Courtroom with the '9/11 Mastermind'

In court with the '9/11 mastermind', two decades after his arrest. Photo courtesy of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s legal team. A recent photo of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Sitting on the front row of a war court on the US's Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the world's most notorious defendants, appeared to listen intently.

A Landmark Week Interrupted

"Can you confirm that Mr Mohammed is pleading guilty to all charges and specifications without exceptions or substitutions?" the judge asked his lawyer as Mohammed watched on. "Yes, we can, Your Honour," the lawyer responded. Sitting in court, 59-year-old Mohammed, his beard dyed bright orange and wearing a headdress, tunic and trousers, bore little resemblance to a photo circulated shortly after his capture in 2003.

Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks on the US, had been due to plead guilty this week - more than 23 years after almost 3,000 people were killed in what the US government has described as "the most egregious criminal act on American soil in modern history".

A Plea on Hold

Mohammed has previously said that he planned the "9/11 operation from A-to-Z" - conceiving the idea of training pilots to fly commercial planes into buildings and taking those plans to Osama bin Laden, leader of the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda. But he has not yet been able to formally admit guilt to the court.

This week's pause comes amid a dispute over a deal reached last year between US prosecutors and his legal team, under which Mohammed would not face a death penalty trial in exchange for his guilty plea. The US government has for months tried to rescind the agreement, saying that allowing the deal to go ahead would cause "irreparable" harm to both it and the American public.

Guantanamo Bay's Final Cases

This week's pause is just the latest in a series of delays, complications and controversies on the base, where the US military has now been holding detainees for 23 years. The military prison on Guantanamo Bay was established during the "war on terror" that followed the 9/11 attacks that Mohammed is accused of orchestrating.

As president, Barack Obama pledged to close the prison during his terms, saying it was contrary to US values. These efforts were revived under the Biden administration. The cases of the remaining prisoners are overseen by military commissions, which operate under different rules than the traditional US criminal justice system. Unlike Mohammed, most people held there since its creation were never charged with any crimes.

Uncertain Future

As the court was dismissed on Friday, the judge said that Mohammed's pleas, if allowed to go ahead, would now fall into the next US administration. The '9/11 mastermind' wants to plead guilty. Why is the US trying to stop him? 9/11 guilty pleas delayed after US government objects. What happened on 9/11? How '9/11 mastermind' slipped through FBI's fingers. September 11 attacks. Guantanamo Bay. United States.