Alleged 9/11 mastermind’s long-awaited trial scheduled for 2028
These undated Federal Bureau of Investigation handout photos of al Qaeda commander Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were marked with the word “Located” after Mohammed’s arrest March 1, 2003, in Pakistan. (FBI/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The alleged self-proclaimed “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks will stand trial in June 2028, a military judge ruled Wednesday, nearly 25 years after the attacks.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was captured in 2003 and has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2006.
“Trial on the merits shall begin on Monday, 5 June 2028,” Lt. Col. Michael Schrama decided.
Prosecutors sought a trial in 2027 but the judge said that was too soon.
The trial date comes after a yearslong legal saga that includes a controversial plea agreement that was later revoked.
In July 2024, Mohammed and two other 9/11 defendants held at Guantanamo Bay reached a plea agreement with military prosecutors under which they would plead guilty to all charges, including the murder of 2,976 people, in exchange for the death penalty being taken off the table.
Under the deal, Mohammed would have served a life sentence at Guantanamo.
The agreement drew criticism from some 9/11 families and just a few days later then-Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin revoked the deal.
“I have determined that, in light of the significance of the decision to enter into pre-trial agreements with the accused in the above-referenced case, responsibility for such a decision should rest with me as the superior convening authority under the Military Commissions Act of 2009,” Austin wrote.
After attorneys for the defendants objected, the Biden administration later took the matter to federal court in an attempt to continue to block the plea deal.
Last July, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled 2-1 that Austin had acted within his authority to revoke the deal.
The prosecution of Mohammed and other alleged 9/11 plotters detained at Guantanamo has been delayed by more than a decade over concerns about the admissibility of evidence gathered through torture when they were previously detained at the CIA’s “black sites.”
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, two hijacked passenger jets flew into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, marking the start of a series of coordinated attacks that day against the United States by the Afghanistan-based terrorist group al-Qaeda. Nearly 3,000 people were killed that day and thousands more were injured.
A hearing is set for Wednesday on a motion to preserve evidence in the botched execution of Christa Pike.
The lone woman on Tennessee’s death row survived being administered two lethal doses of pentobarbital and remains hospitalized following the failed Sept. 30 execution in Nashville, her attorneys said.
Pike was sentenced to death after being convicted of the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer. Her attempted execution by lethal injection came after a series of last-minute legal challenges.
Pike’s attorneys filed an emergency motion in Davidson County Chancery Court last week seeking an order requiring the Tennessee Department of Correction to protect and preserve “any and all evidence related” related to the execution attempt, which they allege was “cruel and unusual punishment.”
“In light of the manifest violation of Ms. Pike’s constitutional rights, the actionable nature of that violation, and the reasonable foreseeability of litigation, the Defendants have an affirmative duty to preserve all relevant physical, written, and electronic evidence,” the filing stated.
A status conference on the matter has been scheduled for 11 a.m. CT Wednesday.
According to the motion, Pike “could be heard crying, whimpering, and breathing loudly” while being administered two lethal doses of pentobarbital, at one point stating that her arm “feels like it’s about to burst open.” At least seven needles were used to gain IV access, with one “bent in a 90-degree angle when it was removed,” the motion stated.
The motion described pentobarbital, a sedating medication, as being “caustic and highly alkaline” and that it “burns upon contact.” Both of Pike’s arms were “swollen, burned, and blistered” when she arrived at a Nashville-area hospital, the motion stated.
Pike had raised concerns about a lethal injection in the months prior to her scheduled execution, arguing that her “thrombocytosis, post traumatic stress disorder and small veins ‘make it sure or very likely that there is a substantial risk that she will experience unnecessary and superadded pain and suffering, terror, and disgrace,'” the motion stated.
In an update Tuesday, Pike’s attorneys said she was conscious and speaking after the failed execution left her critically injured and temporarily on a ventilator.
“Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery,” her attorneys — Randy Spivey and Kelly Gleason from the Tennessee Office of the Post Conviction Defender and Stephen Ferrell and Luke Ihnen from Federal Defender Services of Eastern Tennessee — said in a statement.
The Tennessee Department of Correction confirmed Tuesday that Pike remains hospitalized but said it could not provide details of her medical condition due to federal privacy laws.
“We can say only that Christa Pike remains hospitalized at the Nashville-area facility where she was transported by emergency services on September 30,” the department said in a statement. “Federal privacy laws prevent TDOC from sharing or confirming her medical information.”
Pike’s attorneys said Tuesday they continue to ask Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee to commute her sentence to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.
She is the first person reported to have survived lethal injection after being given medications, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, whose executive director referred to the failed attempt as “the worst we’ve ever seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era.”
In the wake of the botched execution, Lee ordered a temporary halt to scheduled executions in the state and Tennessee Department of Correction Commissioner Frank Strada resigned.
The governor’s office said in a statement that it has also appointed former U.S. Attorney Ed Stanton to conduct an independent review of the Tennessee Department of Correction’s execution attempt that “will seek to determine whether the protocol was followed and consider whether additional recommendations are necessary to ensure the State’s protocol continues to be lawful and effective.”
“The State previously retained Stanton in 2022 to conduct an independent review of Tennessee’s lethal injection protocol. His work prompted the State and Attorney General’s Office to substantially rewrite the protocol before executions resumed,” the statement further said.
U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Roger Fortson was shot in his home by a Florida sheriff’s deputy. Body camera footage appears to show Fortson had a gun in his hand at the time of the shooting. (Air Force)
(WASHINGTON) — Eddie Duran, a former Florida county sheriff’s deputy, was found not guilty by a jury on Thursday after facing one count of manslaughter with a firearm in the 2024 shooting death of a U.S. Air Force airman Roger Fortson.
The jury acquitted Duran after more than two hours of deliberations on Thursday afternoon. Duran, 38, was facing a maximum sentence of 30 years.
Fortson, 23, was in his home in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, on May 3, 2024, when Duran, who was an Okaloosa County sheriff’s deputy, responded to the apartment for a call reporting a domestic disturbance, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. Fortson was alone in the apartment at the time, police said, and he was on the phone with his girlfriend.
Fortson was shot and killed by Duran after answering the door of his apartment while holding a legally owned handgun. The shooting sparked national attention, and the deputy was later fired and charged with manslaughter.
Duran, who pleaded not guilty, testified during his trial on Wednesday, arguing that he fatally shot Fortson in self-defense.
“Looking at his eyes, it was clear to me that I wasn’t welcomed. I wasn’t a welcome presence. He seemed aggressive, frustrated, and again, just I’m not welcome,” Duran said.
“I thought I was dead. As soon as the door opened and I saw it, I immediately thought, ‘I’m dead,'” he added.
Mark Alderman, the assistant state attorney who prosecuted the case, argued during closing arguments on Thursday that Fortson posed “no threat” to Duran and said that he held his handgun because he was “not sure who’s at his door.”
Alderman pointed to the body camera video shown to jurors during the trial, showing that Fortson’s gun was “pointed at the ground” when he was shot by Duran.
“There was no threat. The gun was pointed at the ground,” he said.
Alderman also said that upon opening his door, Fortson held his left arm up when he saw Duran and made “no aggressive move, no aggressive act” before he was shot.
“There’s a reason most of those gunshots enter his left arm, because he was holding it up in an effort to not be shot, and was shot repeatedly in that left arm as he holds it up in an effort to shield himself right before the shooting,” he said. “Roger’s last act was to, in essence, plead to not be shot. The defendant completely ignored it. I hope that you don’t ignore it.”
Meanwhile, Duran’s defense attorney Rod Smith argued on Thursday that Fortson posed an “imminent threat” to Duran and the former sheriff’s deputy’s actions were “a justifiable use of force by a law enforcement officer while he was performing the duties that he is obliged to perform.”
In closing arguments, Smith focused on the gun that Fortson was holding when he opened the door of his home for Duran, arguing that the former sheriff’s deputy was following his training on how to respond to a “close encounter” when he shot Fortson.
“Do you have to wait? Do we ever train people that they have to wait until the gun is pointed at them? No. No one is trained that you wait till the gun is pointed at you. No one would take the job if that was the training,” Smith said.
“The question here is about the reasonableness of his actual fear,” he said. “What is the officer to do at that point? Wait till it’s aimed at him? No, that’s not how you’re trained. It’s imminent threat, and you respond. And he did exactly that,” he added.
State Attorney Ginger Bowden Madden, whose office prosecuted the case against Duran, said in a statement after the verdict on Thursday that prosecutors “respect” the verdict and “thank the jurors for their service.”
“A not-guilty verdict means the State did not prove the criminal charge beyond a reasonable doubt to the satisfaction of every juror,” Madden’s office said in a statement. “It does not diminish the life, service, or humanity of Roger Fortson, and it does not lessen the devastating loss his family, friends, and fellow airmen endured.”
Attorney Ben Crump, who represents Fortson’s family, said in a statement on Friday that this is a “painful moment” for the family, who are “heartbroken” over the not guilty verdict.
“Roger’s life and his service will always matter. His family will keep fighting for him, and we will stand with them as they pursue their civil rights case in federal court and seek accountability for the tragic loss of his life,” Crump said.
Smith, Duran’s attorney, told ABC News in a phone interview on Friday that while he is “thrilled” with the not guilty verdict, he is “saddened for the event that occurred.”
“I just felt like [Duran] followed his training, and it’s a tragedy. This never should have happened. But I didn’t want to see a tragedy turn into an injustice,” Smith said.
Smith added that Duran “had a tough couple of years while this has been hanging over his head,” so he feels “great for him and his family” and is “thankful that it’s over with.”
ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.
A JetBlue plane prepares to take off from the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on July 16, 2020 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A JetBlue Airways pilot reported hitting a drone as the flight was on approach for landing at JFK Airport on Monday morning, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
The plane, which was coming from Las Vegas, landed safely, and the airline and FAA said no damage or evidence of collision was found during the post-flight inspections. The agency will investigate the incident, it noted in its statement.
“Safety is JetBlue’s first priority, and we will assist with any relevant investigations,” the airline said in its statement.
The drone hit the JetBlue plane right above the cockpit and at about 3,000 feet, the pilot told an air traffic controller. The audio was recorded and obtained from ATC.com.
“We collided with a drone back there in the turn as we were coming to ASALT, just wanted to pass to you,” the pilot tells an air traffic controller, referencing the waypoint for flights arriving in the New York City area.
The pilot noted that they did not need any assistance and were good to continue with the landing.
Though the FAA says it receives more than 100 reports of drone sightings near airports each month, unauthorized drone operations near flights and airports are illegal under FAA regulation. The drone operators could be subject to fines, criminal charges and even possible jail time, according to the law.
