Death Penalty Trial to Resume for KSM

The long-delayed effort to put alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed on trial lurched forward today, when the Pentagon approved a death penalty trial for Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators, the Washington Post reports. The trial will be conducted by a military commission at Guantanamo Bay, with an arraignment scheduled for next month.

The men were originally charged in 2008, but the Obama administration suspended the case in an ill-fated effort to hold the trial in a civilian federal court in New York. It could be a while before the trial actually begins, as all the pre-trial issues that came up last time will have to be re-litigated. Among them: whether the defendants are mentally capable of representing themselves, which for two defendants was still an open question when the case was suspended. (More Khalid Sheikh Mohammed stories.)