KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED

Nearly two decades after his capture in Pakistan, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks is still in a legal limbo.

President Biden moved to end the war in Afghanistan, but the proceedings against the remaining war-on-terror detainees, including the 9/11 suspects, drag on.

A judge and lawyers in the case against the only person ever convicted in a U.S. court in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks recalled the difficulties in bringing that case to trial.

In the last year, four men implicated in the 1993 bombing have won reductions to their sentences after one part of their convictions was dropped to be consistent with a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling. Nidal Ayyad, 53, Mohammad A. Salameh, 53, and Mahmud Abouhalima, 61, could be freed if they each live to be 100. AdThe bombers who had their sentences reduced were arrested in the intense FBI probe that followed the blast. In a 2012 memorandum, Duffy called Yousef “a cold-blooded killer, completely devoid of conscience.”AdIn a second trial, he was convicted as the mastermind of the 1993 bombing. Eyad Ismoil, 49, also convicted in the 1993 attack, is serving a 210-year sentence.

But the Supreme Court will rule on that next week, Siddiqi said. “Today the court admitted the appeal and next week it will decide if Sheikh stays in jail” until the appeal is decided. The acquittal stunned the U.S. government, Pearl's family and journalism advocacy groups. The U.S. State Department said in a statement that it is watching the case closely and “stands with the Pearl family during this arduous and painfull process." The Pearl family launched a foundation in Daniel's name following the killing, said his father.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. The only man ever convicted in a U.S. court for a role in the Sept. 11 attacks now says he is renouncing terrorism, al-Qaida and the Islamic State. In a handwritten court motion Moussaoui filed with the federal court in Alexandria last month, Moussaoui wrote, I denounce, repudiate Usama bin Laden as a useful idiot of the CIA/Saudi. At his final sentencing hearing, he told the judge God save Osama bin Laden you will never get him." Bin Laden was killed in a raid by U.S. forces on a compound in Pakistan in 2011. In particular, he says he wants either Rudy Giuliani or Alan Dershowitz to represent him as a lawyer, so he can testify in a civil trial filed by victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Defense lawyers are seeking to bar confessions that all five defendants gave to FBI interviewers, called clean teams, in 2007. The prosecution has said those confessions are untainted by the prior torture and key elements in their case. In addition to Mohammed, the defendants are his nephew Ammar Baluchi, Ramzi bin Shibh, Mustafa Hawsawi and Walid bin Attash. The hearings have gone on so long several military lawyers have retired. Defense lawyers are unable to talk with their clients about anything the government decides is classified.

In a file photo Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind, is seen shortly after his capture during a raid in Pakistan Saturday March 1, 2003, in this photo obtained by the Associated Press. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, might help the families of victims of those attacks with testimony in their civil lawsuit against the government of Saudi Arabia if the U.S. government abandons a bid to execute him via military tribunal, a new court filing revealed. Lawyers for the victims' families, in a letter to the judge overseeing the case, said they had learned from Mohammed's lawyers that he is not willing to be deposed in that civil case "at the present time." "In the absence of a potential death sentence much broader cooperation would be possible," KSM's attorneys told the plaintiffs' lawyers, according to their letter filed Friday with Judge Sarah Netburn in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. The letter was first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Monday, the same day President Donald Trump signed into law a bill to replenish billions of dollars in funds for the victims of the 9/11 attacks.