Nearly 25 years after the attacks, Supreme Court asked to bring closure to 9/11 case

Khalid Shaikh Mohammad and Mustafa al-Hawsawi are asking the Supreme Court to review whether the D.C. Circuit wrongly overturned plea agreements that would have spared them the death penalty. Former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tried to withdraw those deals; two military courts said that was unlawful, but the D.C. Circuit sided with the government using a mandamus petition the defendants say exceeded the court's authority under the Military Commissions Act.

A military judge separately ruled last week that Mohammad's 2007 Guantanamo confessions, obtained after earlier CIA torture including 183 rounds of waterboarding, cannot be used at trial, further complicating the government's case. Legal scholars and victims' groups filed briefs urging Supreme Court review, arguing the delay undermines both the rule of law and any hope of closure.

Trial remains scheduled for June 2028, twenty years after pretrial proceedings began.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.