9/11 tragedy-Khalid Shaikh and four other charged with plotting attacks that killed 2,976 people

Death penalty trial date for men accused of planning 9/11 is finally set: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other accomplices charged with plotting attacks that killed 2,976 people will be held at Guantanamo Bay in January 2021 

A 2021 date has been established for the death-penalty trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other men charged as the masterminds behind the September 11 attack in New York City. Colonel W. Shane Cohen of the Air Force announced on Friday that the trial is set for January 11, 2021. The case will take place at Camp Justice at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. 

Cohen set the date so that a military jury could be selected, the New York Times  reports.  The date announcement was included in a 10-page trial scheduling order that also established prosecutors had until October 1 to get necessary documents and materials to the defense teams.

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 Cohen's announcement marks the first time that a trial judge in the case actually established a date. Prosecutors had tried to get the ball rolling with two previous judges after the 2012 arraignment for the 9/11 attacks 

Cohen's announcement marks the first time that a trial judge in the case actually established a date. Prosecutors had tried to get the ball rolling with two previous judges after the 2012 arraignment. 

All five men were arraigned in the case on May 5, 2012. They were arraigned in a national security courtroom at Guantánamo. 

Back in March of 2019, a defense lawyer disclosed that prosecutors announced that they had tapes of calls between Mohammed and three of his accused co-conspirators. 

In the calls, made months before 2,976 people were killed, the parties can be heard speaking in code about their plan.

Jay Connell, a lawyer on the defense teams, shared the existence of the tapes as a means of protesting their usage as evidence in the case. 

Connell explained to the New York Times that defense lawyers were given the audio tapes and transcripts of them on September 30, 2016. 

Defense lawyers soon learned of the prosecutions intent on using the phone calls and also learned that the original trial judge, Army Colonel James L. Pohl, issued a secret order that kept them in the dark on the phone calls existence. The calls had been made from April to October in 2001. 

Connell is representing Mohammed's nephew, Ammar al-Baluchi. 

In August 2018, Connell claimed prosecutors obtained a ruling from Pohl that forbade defense lawyers from learning how the calls were collected.

He argued that the move violated his clients basic rights to challenge the evidence that was being used against him. 

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Mohammed shortly after his capture in Pakistan on March 1, 2003