In a corner of Cuba, a group of men are dying of old age. Their beards have grayed. Their eyesight is dimming. They are the men who organized, planned, financed, and facilitated the 9/11 attacks.
Twenty-five years after the attacks, they have still not faced justice.
Douglas Murray writes that the 25th anniversary passed with almost no mention of the surviving terrorists or the failure to bring them to justice. He says that should trouble anyone who believes a free society can defend itself and then follow through when the attack is over.
The men Murray names include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or KSM, and his colleagues. He says they were barely mentioned during recent anniversary events. The reason, he suggests, is uncomfortable: acknowledging their continued presence should remind Americans of the inadequacy of Western legal systems when faced with terrorist enemies.
The record is plain. The first detainees arrived at what was then called Camp X-Ray in 2002. Their images, shackled and wearing orange jumpsuits, triggered a backlash in public opinion. Murray says the U.S. could have overcome that unease if the terrorists had quickly faced the full force of American justice.
Instead, after 25 years and five presidential administrations in Washington, most of the accused are still in the pretrial phase.
That is not a small procedural delay. It is a failure of incentives, institutions, and political will. Victims’ families were promised they would live to see resolution. Murray says that has not happened. The promise has lasted longer than some of the people who made it.
He also notes the toll on those tasked with moving the cases forward. The judges have retired and been replaced. Mark Martins, the original chief prosecutor, repeatedly delayed his own retirement in an effort to give the 9/11 families justice. Murray says the obstacles beyond his control were so numerous that they eventually wore him down as well. Martins retired in 2021.
What remains is a cautionary tale about the administrative state of justice when a democracy cannot convert moral clarity into final judgment. Say it plainly: if a country cannot bring the men who helped carry out the deadliest attack on its soil to a conclusion after a quarter century, something deeper than delay is at work.
The consequence is larger than one courtroom. It is a question of whether Western institutions can still meet an enemy that exploits time, complexity, and hesitation. Murray’s warning is not just about the past. It is about whether America and its allies are fit for the challenges of the 21st century when the central test is so simple and so unresolved.
