2026-09-11T06:00:00-0400 / https://www.cbsnews.com/news/khalid-sheikh-mohammed-911-plotters-trial/
在造成近3000人遇难的2001年9月11日袭击事件过去25年后，涉案嫌犯仍未接受审判。
在驳回检方2027年1月启动庭审的请求后，关塔那摩湾的一名军事法官下令，针对包括被指控为袭击主谋哈立德·谢赫·穆罕默德在内的四名9·11嫌犯的审判陪审团遴选工作，将于2028年6月5日启动。
“民众普遍感到极度沮丧，”联合航空93号航班遇难者家属协会主席戈登·费尔特对哥伦比亚广播公司新闻表示。费尔特是93号航班乘客爱德华·费尔特的兄弟，他牵头致力于分享爱德华以及其他40名与劫机者展开搏斗的乘客和机组人员的故事。“我们至今未能看到正义得到伸张，也没有任何人被追责。关塔那摩的审判仍处于预审阶段……这一过程无休止地拖延着。”
这一最新庭审日期给遇难者家属带来了一个令人痛苦的疑问：在经历了如此多的延期和漫长的预审程序后，这起案件能否按计划推进？
四名受审嫌犯
目前共有四名被告被安排一同受审：哈立德·谢赫·穆罕默德、瓦利德·本·阿塔什、阿马尔·巴尔祖吉（又名阿里·阿卜杜勒·阿齐兹·阿里）以及穆斯塔法·阿尔-哈萨维。这些男子面临死刑指控，检方寻求以共谋罪、违反战争法的谋杀罪、恐怖主义罪和劫持航空器罪对其提起诉讼。
第五名被告拉姆齐·本·阿尔-希卜赫经军事法官认定精神失常无法受审，现已不再被纳入本案。
检方指控，常被称为KSM的穆罕默德策划并指挥了劫持商用飞机、将其作为武器撞向世贸中心和五角大楼的袭击计划。穆罕默德于2003年在巴基斯坦被捕，随后被中情局秘密关押多年，最终于2006年被转移至关塔那摩监狱。尽管KSM本人的供述是美国政府指控他的关键证据，但这也成为将案件送上庭审的最大障碍之一。
站在被告席的战争嫌犯
迈克尔·莱博维茨拥有独特的视角。这位前司法部国家安全律师、退伍军人曾以关塔那摩检察官的身份参与9·11案件审理长达约十年，还曾参与处理美国海军科尔号驱逐舰遇袭案以及基地组织高层相关案件。这位曾担任美国陆军网络司令部高级法律顾问的人士直言不讳地评价道：在美国选择以非常规方式起诉这起案件后，9·11案变得异常复杂。
小布什政府并未将涉案基地组织行动人员视为联邦法院体系中的传统刑事被告，而是设立了军事委员会来起诉涉嫌犯下战争罪的恐怖主义嫌疑人。
“政府彻底从使用执法工具转向了军事手段，”莱博维茨解释道，并补充称国会和最高法院“对该体系进行了反复调整”，最终形成了一套混合体系，导致“法官频繁更迭，办案人员也不断轮换”。
自2012年被告首次出庭受审以来，目前负责9·11案件的法官、空军中校迈克尔·施拉马是第五位监督本案的法官。
莱博维茨回忆称，9·11案件的提审程序持续了13个小时，堪称“美国历史上耗时最长的提审”。
为何在曼哈顿审判KSM的计划被放弃
2009年，美国司法部长埃里克·霍尔德宣布，将在曼哈顿联邦法院对穆罕默德及其四名同案被告提起诉讼，奥巴马政府当时辩称，联邦法院具备审理重大恐怖主义案件的能力，可以提供公平的审判。
这一计划最终夭折，起因于另一名关塔那摩监狱囚犯艾哈迈德·卡尔凡·盖拉尼在因参与1998年美国驻东非大使馆爆炸案受审时，绝大多数罪名不成立，这一判决成为当时关于恐怖主义被告应在联邦法院还是其他机构受审的政治争论焦点。他最终因一项共谋罪被判处终身监禁，但在超过280项共谋和谋杀指控上被判无罪。
随后，国会限制了政府将关塔那摩监狱囚犯转移至美国本土受审的权力，9·11恐怖主义案件因此重回关塔那摩的军事委员会审理体系。
关塔那摩：一场“流动的马戏”
曼哈顿的联邦法院每日照常运作，但关塔那摩的庭审日程却截然不同。莱博维茨表示，军事委员会的诉讼程序被所有相关方普遍称为“流动的马戏”。
“要在关塔那摩湾举行听证会，整个法院系统都必须前往华盛顿特区的安德鲁斯空军基地，然后搭乘包机出发，”莱博维茨说，“包括法官、检察官、辩护律师、证人、法院工作人员以及遇难者家属在内的所有人，都要搭乘同一架航班飞往关塔那摩湾举行听证会。”
这意味着一场听证会绝非走进法院、将案件列入日程那么简单。
随着办案人员不断轮换进出关塔那摩，后勤方面的障碍也不断增加。
“每隔六个月到一年，我们就不得不重新就一些非常基础、 mundane（此处指琐碎日常）的问题进行诉讼，比如囚犯如何获得保释，以及他们何时能与律师会面，”他补充道。
围绕酷刑指控的诉讼
在KSM被移送至关塔那摩监狱之前，这名据称的战争罪犯曾被中情局秘密关押多年，遭受了包括水刑在内的审讯手段。这种强制性审讯手段后来成为法律争议的核心：他之后向美国调查人员作出的供述能否作为指控他的证据。
检方一贯主张采用中情局审讯计划期间收集的证据，但辩方辩称，这些后续供述无法与多年的强制性羁押行为割裂开来。
这场争议引发了多年来围绕机密信息、证据开示以及所有被告羁押条件和审讯情况的听证会，法官们需要在被告的权利与政府保护机密国家安全信息的义务之间划出界限。
2024年，一项原本可使穆罕默德和两名同案被告免于死刑的认罪协议最终被放弃，案件因此再次走向审判。
辩方辩称，这些供述仍受到KSM在中情局羁押期间遭受的强制待遇的影响。
今年8月，一名军事法官裁定，政府未能证明KSM在2007年中情局羁押结束后向联邦调查局作出的供述是自愿的，因此裁定排除该供述。
“我审阅过9·11案件的所有证据，包括机密和非机密证据，我非常确信，即便没有这些供词，我们也有足够的证据给KSM和其他9·11共谋者定罪，”莱博维茨说。
不过，这位前检察官也承认：“没有供词，将证据串联起来的工作会变得更困难一些。”
检方届时将不得不依赖其他证据，包括证明被告与袭击计划有关联的书面文件和通信证据。尽管检方本可对该裁决提出上诉，争取将KSM向联邦调查局作出的供述重新纳入证据，但他们决定不上诉，部分原因是再次提起上诉可能会危及2028年6月的庭审日期。
费尔特支持这一决定：“我认为这是个明智的选择，因为上诉显然会进一步推迟案件进程。”他补充道，“我相信即便没有存在争议的供词，他们也有足够的证据获得定罪。”
2028年终将迎来庭审吗？
尽管法官已下令陪审团遴选和庭审将于2028年6月5日启动，但这一日期并非板上钉钉。
既定的日程安排取决于各方能否按时完成各项截止任务和里程碑节点。
莱博维茨表示，衡量本案耗时之久的最令人痛心的标准，是许多9·11遇难者家属的反应。
“他们中的很多人年事已高，很多人只是希望能活到亲眼看到法庭正式认定KSM及其同谋有罪的那一天，”他说。
费尔特对庭审能否按计划进行表示怀疑。“他们之前也曾定下过庭审日期，”他说道，“我认为在案件正式推进前，法官还需要作出90项裁决，所以我只会在亲眼看到的时候才会相信。”
25年后，人们的目标已经不再是敲定日历上的某一日期，而是将案件移送法庭并作出裁决。
“无论结果如何，爱德华都已经离开了我们，他被夺走了，从他的家人身边偷走了。但对我而言，正义就是向法庭呈现事实的过程，”费尔特说道，他补充称自己支持检方寻求死刑的决定。
费尔特援引9·11事件中2977名遇难者以及此后因袭击相关原因离世的数百人表示：“自那一天起，我们失去了更多的人——不仅包括在救援现场以及新泽西州萨默塞特县、纽约和五角大楼三处袭击现场感染癌症和呼吸道疾病的遇难者家属，还包括这些年来所有的军事阵亡人员。毫无疑问，如果能证明他们有罪，我们就应该看到死刑的判决。”
贾拉·布朗为本报道撰稿。
Where the case against the alleged 9/11 plotters stands 25 years after the attack
2026-09-11T06:00:00-0400 / https://www.cbsnews.com/news/khalid-sheikh-mohammed-911-plotters-trial/
Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, the alleged plotters still have not faced a trial.
After rejecting prosecutors’ request to begin the trial in January 2027, a military judge at Guantánamo Bay has ordered jury selection for the trial of four alleged 9/11 plotters — including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused principal architect of the attacks — to begin on June 5, 2028.
“There’s significant frustration,” Gordon Felt, president of Families of Flight 93, told CBS News. Felt is the brother of Flight 93 passenger Edward Felt and leads efforts to share his story and that of all 40 passengers and crew members who fought back against hijackers. “We’ve yet to see justice or accountability. The trials are still in a pre-trial phase at Guantanamo … that’s been dragging on endlessly.”
The latest date presents a painful question for the families of the victims: After so many missed deadlines and prolonged pre-trial proceedings, will this case move forward as planned?
The four on trial
Four defendants are currently slated to stand trial together: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Ammar al-Baluchi, also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. The men are facing the death penalty, with prosecutors seeking charges that include conspiracy, murder in violation of the law of war, terrorism and hijacking.
After a military judge determined he was mentally unfit to stand trial, a fifth defendant, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, is no longer part of the case.
Prosecutors allege Mohammed, commonly referred to as KSM, developed and directed the plot to hijack commercial aircraft, weaponizing them and directing them toward the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and held in secret CIA custody for years before being transferred to Guantánamo in 2006. While KSM’s own statements represent key pieces of the U.S. government’s case against him, they have also been one of the biggest obstacles in bringing the case to trial.
War criminals on the stand
Michael Lebowitz offers a rare perspective. The former Justice Department national security attorney and combat veteran spent roughly a decade working on the 9/11 case as a Guantánamo prosecutor, also contributing to cases involving the USS Cole bombing and senior al Qaeda figures. The former senior legal adviser to the U.S. Army Cyber Command gave this blunt assessment: The 9/11 case became extraordinarily complicated after the United States chose an extraordinary way to prosecute it.
Rather than treating the alleged al Qaeda operatives as traditional criminal defendants in the federal court system, the Bush administration developed military commissions to prosecute terrorism suspects for alleged war crimes.
“The government completely switched from the law enforcement toolkit into the military option,” Lebowitz explained, adding that Congress and the Supreme Court “tinkered with the system” to create a hybrid one that saw “judges cycling in and out, plus personnel are cycling in and out.”
The current judge for the 9/11 case, Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Schrama, is the fifth judge to oversee the case since the defendants were arraigned in 2012.
Lebowitz recalls the 9/11 arraignment lasted 13 hours and said it was the “longest arraignment in American history.”
Why the plan to try KSM in Manhattan was abandoned
In 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Mohammed and four co-defendants would be prosecuted in federal court in Manhattan, with the Obama administration arguing that federal courts were equipped to handle major terrorism cases and could provide a fair trial.
That plan collapsed after another Guantánamo detainee, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, was prosecuted for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa. His acquittals on most charges evolved into a political flashpoint in the ongoing debate over whether terrorism defendants should be tried in federal court. He was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of conspiracy on one charge, but not on over 280 conspiracy and murder charges.
Congress subsequently restricted the government’s ability to transfer Guantánamo detainees to the United States for trial, and the 9/11 terrorism case returned to the military-commission system at Guantánamo.
Guantánamo: A “traveling circus”
While a federal courthouse in Manhattan operates every day, Guantánamo keeps a much different schedule. Lebowitz says military-commission litigation was commonly referred to by all parties as a “traveling circus.”
“In order to conduct a hearing at Guantánamo Bay, the entire court system has to go to Andrews Air Force Base in Washington, D.C., and load up onto a chartered flight,” Lebowitz said. “And I’m talking about judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, witnesses, court staff, victim family members — we all go on the same flight and we fly to Guantánamo Bay to conduct a hearing.”
That means a hearing is not simply a matter of walking into a courthouse and putting a case on the docket.
As personnel rotate in and out of Guantánamo, logistical hurdles mount.
“Every six months to a year, we had to litigate again very mundane, basic things such as how detainees can get bail and when they meet their lawyers,” he added.
Litigating torture
Before KSM ever set foot in Guantánamo, the alleged war criminal spent years in secret CIA detention, subjected to an interrogation program that included waterboarding and coercive treatment that later became central to the legal battle over whether statements he made later before U.S. investigators could be used against him.
Prosecutors have routinely advocated to use evidence gathered following the CIA’s program, but the defense argues that those later statements cannot simply be separated from years of coercive detention.
The debate has generated years of hearings over classified information, discovery and the circumstances surrounding all of the defendants’ detention conditions and ongoing interrogation as judges navigate the line between the defendants’ rights and the government’s obligation to protect classified national security information.
A 2024 plea agreement that would have spared Mohammed and two co-defendants the possibility of execution was ultimately abandoned, sending the case back toward trial.
The defense argued that the statements were still tainted by the coercion KSM had experienced in CIA custody.
In August, a military judge ruled that the government had not established that statements KSM made to the FBI in 2007 — after his CIA detention — were voluntary and ruled to exclude them.
“I’ve gone every shred of evidence in the 9/11 case, both classified and unclassified, and I feel very confident that there is enough evidence to convict KSM and the other 9/11 conspirators without those confessions,” Lebowitz said.
Still, the former prosecutor conceded, “It makes the job a little harder to connect the dots of the evidence without the confessions.”
The prosecution will instead have to rely on other evidence, including documentary and communications evidence that link the defendants to the plot. While prosecutors could have fought the ruling and tried to get KSM’s FBI statements back into evidence, they decided not to appeal, in part because another appellate battle could jeopardize the June 2028 trial date.
Felt supports that decision: “I think that was a good choice because I think [an appeal] would have pushed things back significantly.” He added, “I believe they’ve got enough evidence to get a conviction without the confession that was under question.”
Will 2028 finally see a trial?
While the judge has ordered jury selection and the trial to begin June 5, 2028, the date is not guaranteed.
The set schedule depends on parties meeting deadlines and milestones.
Lebowitz said that the most painful measure of how long this case has taken is the response from many 9/11 family members.
“A lot of them were elderly, and a lot of them were just hoping they can live long enough to see a court of law officially determine that KSM and his conspirators (are) guilty,” he said.
Felt expressed some doubt that the trial would proceed as scheduled. “They’ve set dates before,” he remarked. “There’s — I believe — 90 rulings that have to be made by the judge before we can proceed, so I’ll believe it when I see it.”
After 25 years, the goal is no longer to find a date on the calendar, but to move the case into the courtroom and reach a verdict.
“No matter what happens, Ed is gone. He’s been taken, stolen from his family. But for me, justice is a process of presenting the facts to the court,” Felt said, adding that he supports prosecutors seeking the death penalty.
Citing the 2,977 people killed on 9/11 and the hundreds of others who died afterward as a result of the attack, Felt added, “We’ve lost far more people since that day —not only from cancers and respiratory illnesses that were contracted at the recovery sites and all three sites here in Somerset, in New York, and at the Pentagon, but all the military losses we’ve incurred over the years. Absolutely, if their guilt can be proven, we need to see the death penalty.”
Jaala Brown contributed to this report.