The Supreme Court on Monday refused to revive a controversial 2024 plea agreement that would have spared accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed the death penalty, leaving the long-delayed military trial as the only path to resolving a case a quarter century after the deadliest terror attacks on American soil. The justices declined to review the appeals without comment or noted dissents, clearing away one more legal barrier in a prosecution that has been gridlocked for more than two decades.
The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. (File photo)
The decision, handed down on Oct. 19, 2026, concerned plea agreements reached in July 2024 between Mohammed and two co-defendants — Mustafa al Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash — and military prosecutors overseeing the Pentagon's war court at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Under the deals, the three men would have pleaded guilty and accepted life sentences without the possibility of parole, taking the death penalty off the table.
Days after the agreements were announced, then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin rescinded them, saying only the Pentagon chief had the authority to authorize such a deal and citing the gravity of the 9/11 attacks. The move followed an outcry from Republican lawmakers and some groups representing 9/11 victims and their families.
A Deal Signed, Then Shredded
The July 31, 2024 agreement had been accepted by the official overseeing the Pentagon's Guantanamo war tribunal as a way to bring closure to a case that has consumed the military justice system for decades. Two days later, on Aug. 2, Austin voided the deals.
What followed was a year of contradictory rulings. Military courts ruled that Austin had no legal authority to revoke the agreements and scheduled prompt plea hearings. But a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit disagreed, using a rare legal authority to back Austin. The D.C. Circuit said Austin "indisputably" had authority to cancel the agreements, according to reports on the ruling.
Mohammed's lawyers asked the Supreme Court to intervene, arguing that because the case is of such high national importance, the justices should have the final word on whether the plea agreement can stand. The appeals also argued that the D.C. Circuit had overstepped its authority by siding with the government.
The Supreme Court turned the appeals away. The court's records identify the cases as Mohammad v. United States, No. 26-13, and bin 'Atash v. United States, No. 25-1335. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who served in the George W. Bush White House counsel's office at the time of Mohammed's capture in 2003, recused himself from the case.
The Guantanamo Bay detention facility. (File photo)
The Torture Problem That Still Haunts the Case
One reason the prosecution has dragged on for nearly 25 years is the government's own interrogation program. Mohammed was captured in a raid in Pakistan in 2003, held in secret CIA prisons where he was subjected to waterboarding and other interrogation measures, and transferred to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006.
The admissibility of evidence obtained through those interrogations has paralyzed the military commissions for years. Prosecutors had already agreed to exclude statements Mohammed made during his time in CIA custody, hoping instead to rely on admissions of guilt he made to a so-called "clean team" of FBI agents.
But in August, a military judge threw out those FBI confessions too, ruling they were not given voluntarily and cannot be used against Mohammed at trial. Prosecutors have said those admissions were the centerpiece of their case. The ruling strips them of key evidence just as the government prepares for a full capital trial.
A fourth alleged plotter, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, was also earmarked for trial but was not involved in the Supreme Court appeal.
What This Means
The high court's refusal to intervene puts the case back in the hands of the military commission system that has for years struggled to set a trial. The death penalty is back on the table for all three men. For families of the nearly 3,000 people killed on Sept. 11, 2001 — at the World Trade Center in New York, the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania — the decision means waiting even longer for a verdict that has been delayed for almost a quarter century.
Legal experts cautioned that the road ahead remains long. "The practical effect of today's denials of certiorari is to clear the way for the inexorable pre-trial proceedings in these cases to continue," said Steve Vladeck, a CNN legal analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center, who had filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the justices to take up the appeals.
"It would be one thing if a trial were reasonably likely in the near future, but even the current summer 2028 trial date is entirely unrealistic given how many issues remain to be resolved," Vladeck added.
The decision also locks in a precedent on the Pentagon chief's authority over military commission plea deals. The D.C. Circuit's holding that the defense secretary can unilaterally revoke agreements accepted by the war court stands, giving future Pentagon leaders the same power in this and any related case.
A courtroom sketch from the Guantanamo Bay proceedings. (File photo)
What Happens Next
An Air Force military judge has set a trial start date of June 5, 2028, for Mohammed and his co-defendants before a military commission at Guantanamo Bay, where the death penalty would be a possible punishment if they are convicted.
Between now and then, prosecutors and defense teams will continue litigating pre-trial issues, including the admissibility of the remaining evidence and the conditions of the defendants' detention. With the plea deals officially dead, both sides must now prepare for the full capital trial — a proceeding that, by some estimates, would be the most complex prosecution in American military history.
After nearly 25 years of delays, denials, and discarded deals, the case against the alleged 9/11 plotters enters its next chapter. Whether the 2028 trial date holds, or whether it slips again like every deadline before it, will become clear in the months ahead.
(Sources: USA Today, Reuters, CNN, NBC News, New York Post; reporting dated Oct. 19, 2026)
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