A military judge finally set a trial date for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — June 5, 2028, or roughly 27 years after nearly 3,000 Americans were murdered. The families who lost loved ones that day have spent a quarter century watching the federal government prove more competent at bureaucracy than justice.

Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Schrama rejected prosecutors' request for a January 2027 start and pushed the date 18 months further out, citing pre-trial rulings the court still needs to make. Schrama is the fifth judge to oversee the case. Five judges. Two and a half decades. And the system still needs more time.

Mohammed and three co-conspirators — Walid bin Attash, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, and Ammar al-Baluchi — have been held at Guantánamo Bay since 2006. Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003. He was charged and arraigned in 2008. That was 18 years ago. The Obama-era military commissions system has been tested for the first time through this case, NBC News reported, and it has been a slow-motion failure.

The delays come from two directions. Defense attorneys say the government is working to conceal details of the torture detainees endured at secret CIA prisons before their transfer to Guantánamo. The question of whether confessions obtained through that torture are admissible has tied the proceedings in knots for years. Meanwhile, the judges keep rotating through.

The case nearly ended in 2024 when Mohammed, bin Attash, and al-Hawsawi agreed to a plea deal with the Biden administration — guilty pleas in exchange for life sentences instead of the death penalty. A split federal appeals court threw out that agreement last summer. Some families supported the plea as the only realistic path to closure; others were outraged that the planners of the deadliest attack on American soil might escape execution. The New York Post reported that the public outcry contributed to the deal's collapse.

The families' frustration is plain. "We have been asking for a trial date for 20 years. Hopefully, this time it is for real," said retired NYPD officer Jim Smith, whose wife Moira died responding to the attacks. "Someone has to man up and take charge."

Retired officer Kathy Vigiano, whose husband Det. Joseph Vigiano died on 9/11, asked the question every American should be asking: "We have waited 25 years. Why do we have to wait another two years? How much time do you need for pre-trial?"

She also wondered whether Schrama will still be on the case in 2028 — a fair concern given the track record. Retired lieutenant John Ryan, who commanded the Port Authority rescue and recovery task force, noted that two more years is a lifetime for elderly relatives of victims: "They would like to see justice in their lifetime."

Two administrations — Republican and Democrat — built and presided over this broken tribunal system. The CIA's black-site torture program, launched under Bush, poisoned the evidentiary chain. The Obama commissions couldn't fix it. The Biden team tried a plea deal, then watched it collapse. Nobody has been held accountable for the dysfunction. The national security apparatus that failed to prevent 9/11, then tortured suspects in secret prisons, then couldn't figure out how to prosecute them in open court, faces no consequences. Only the families do.

The next trial date is set for June 2028. Whether this judge is still on the bench by then — and whether Mohammed lives to see a verdict — are open questions the system has earned no trust to answer.