Key 9/11 Suspect To Be Tried In New York

Key 9/11 Suspect to Be Tried in New York

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/us...ID0JFfBLbXnViw

By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: November 13, 2009

WASHINGTON —Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said early on Friday.

But the Obama administration has decided to prosecute Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri — the Guantanamo detainee accused of planning the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen — and several other detainees before a military commission, the official said.

Both decisions are expected to be announced at the Department Justice later on Friday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because that press conference has not yet taken place.

Mr. Obama, asked about the decision during a news conference on his week-long trip to Asia, declined to comment directly, but said that Mr. Mohammed would face justice.

“I’m absolutely convinced that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice,” Mr. Obama said. “The American people insist on it and my administration insists on it.”

The decision about how to try several of the most high-profile detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, marks a milestone in the administration’s efforts to close the detention facility, a policy that President Obama announced shortly after taking office but which has proven more difficult than his team anticipated.

No detainee is being moved right away. Under a law Congress enacted earlier this year, lawmakers must be given 45 days advance notice before the executive branch moves a Guantanamo detainee onto United States soil.

It was not immediately clear where the military commission trials would take place. The Bush administration spent tens of millions of dollars on a commissions courtroom at Guantanamo, but it has sat empty since the Obama administration froze legal proceedings there to undertake a review of how to handle the detainees.

Mukasey: 'very high' risk of attack over NYC 9/11 trial

http://www.politico.com/blogs/joshge...911_trial.html

Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said today that it is highly likely that terrorists will attack New York City as a consequence of the Obama administration's decision to send five alleged Sept. 11 plotters there for trial in federal court.

During a question and answer period following a speech to a conservative legal group, Mukasey was asked about the possibility that there might be an escape by one or more prisoners.

"The [Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan] is a very secure place....Is it secure? Of course, it’s secure. They’re not going to escape," Mukasey told a conference of the Federalist Society. "The question is not whether they're going to escape. The question is whether, not only that particular facility, but the city [at] large, will then become the focus for mischief in the form of murder by adherents of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed--whether this raises the odds that it will. I would suggest to you that it raises them very high."

Mukasey said the men now to be tried in New York should have been left before military commission proceedings at Guantanamo that were already in progress.

"The plan seems to be to abandon the view that we’re in a war," Mukasey said. "I can’t see anything good coming out of this. I certainly can’t see anything good coming out of it very quickly. And it think it would have been far preferable to try these case in the venue that Congress created for trying and where they were about to be tried."

Mukasey, a former federal judge who oversaw cases relating to the 1993 World Trade Center attacks, warned that a civilian court trial for the Sept. 11 plotters could produce " a cornucopia of information for those still at large and a circus for those still in custody."

However, despite his warnings about a terrorist attack on New York, Mukasey said he thought the legal system could carry out a fair and successful trial. He also said finding impartial jurors would not be much of a problem.

"Understand, I am a partisan of the Southern District of New York. I know of no jurisdiction where you could get people who are better prepared to deal with it, and that includes prosecutors, judges and jurors," he said. "But saying that, if you have to do it any place, that is a place to do it, is not the same as saying and should not be construed by anybody as saying that’s what I think should be done, because it isn’t."

Mukasey portrayed the idea of civilian trials as a reckless "social experiment" that the nation was likely to regret.

"If I thought that I or my family or my fellow citizens had three lives to live, I suppose I could be persuaded that we should live one of them as a social experiment to see whether the result here is one that we want to live with. But I don’t and they don’t and you don’t," he said. "It would take a whole lot more credulousness than I have available to be optimistic about the outcome of this latest experiment."

At a news conference this morning announcing the administration's decision, Attorney General Eric Holder disputed claims that having a 9/11-related trial in New York would endanger New Yorkers.

" New York has a long history of trying these kinds of cases," Holder said. "New York has a hardened system. We have talked to the Marshal Service there. An analysis was done about the capabilities that exist in New York, and I'm quite confident that we can safely hold people there, that we can protect the people who surround the courthouse area, and bring these cases successfully. So I don't think that that criticism is factually based."

New York trial for 9/11 suspects poses legal, political risks

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/york-tri...complications/

By Muriel Kane
Friday, November 13th, 2009 -- 8:58 pm

The announcement on Friday that the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged September 11 conspirators will be held just blocks from the former site of the Twin Towers has quickly given rise to complications.

One factor is the angry reception they are bound to receive in New York. "Hang them," a construction worker near the "ground zero' site told AFP. "Put them in a bird cage and hang it in the middle of Times Square," another man suggested.

A man who works in the area agreed that "It's the way it should have been from the beginning. This is where the crime happened," but was also concerned about "how they'll handle security."

The trial also poses legal and political risks for the Obama administration. As the Associated Press points out, "The case is likely to force the civilian federal court to confront a host of difficult issues, including rough treatment of detainees, sensitive intelligence gathering and the potential spectacle of defiant terrorists disrupting proceedings. U.S. civilian courts prohibit evidence obtained through coercion, and a number of detainees were questioned using harsh methods some call torture."

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell has already objected that holding a trial in the United States "puts Americans unnecessarily at risk," and former Bush Attorney General Michael Mukasey complained that "the plan seems to be to abandon the view that we are at war" and warned that the trial could turn into a circus.

Attorney General Eric Holder insists, however, that there is enough untainted evidence to provide a solid case against the defendants. In addition, according to the AP, "the Justice Department, where Holder has spent most of his career, has long wanted to reassert the ability of federal courts to handle terrorism cases."

Although Holder appears confident in these five initial cases, evidence to try other Guantanamo detainees may be lacking. According to ProPublica, "Most of the remaining detainees are considered too difficult to prosecute, mostly because the evidence against them is thin or based on statements obtained through coercion." As a result, "federal and military prosecutors are racing each other to strike plea deals with at least a dozen additional Guantanamo detainees whose testimony could be used against some of the most notorious prisoners."

ProPublica describes this competition between the federal and military systems as reaching unseemly levels. "One defense attorney, who represents a high-value detainee held by the CIA in secret detention and then sent to Guantanamo, witnessed days of fighting between military and federal prosecutors over who had control of the case. 'We asked a simple procedural question and ended up bystanders to days of turf battles,' the attorney said."

It appears, for example, that Omar Khadr, the young Canadian who was captured in Afghanistan when he was only 15, will stand trial before a military tribunal. "We thought that the incoming Obama administration signalled a new day with respect to these cases," Khadr's lawyer charged. “I had thought this administration was better than that."

Officials told ProPublica that there may be winnable cases against 40 more detainees, but another 30 may never face former charges. "The government is fishing in very shallow water," one defense attorney said with reference to the remaining detainees. As a result, some detainees may eventually be released even without agreement from all intelligence agencies.

Is the Case Against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed Strong Enough?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/2009111...08599193937400

By MASSIMO CALABRESI / WASHINGTON Massimo Calabresi / Washington – Fri Nov 13, 3:25 pm ET

There are hard legal cases, and there are high-profile legal cases, but the prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed may turn out to be one of the hardest high-profile cases ever. Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday that Mohammed, the confessed architect of the Sept. 11 attacks who was waterboarded 183 times in U.S. custody in March 2003, will be put on trial in the Southern District of New York along with four other Sept. 11 plotters. Between the imperative of bringing an alleged mass murderer to justice and the challenge of overcoming evidence tainted by torture, the case will be messy, politically charged - and closely watched by the entire country.

The job of delivering a conviction will fall to the newly appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District, Preet Bharara. Previously an assistant attorney in the Southern District prosecuting the Mob, Bharara made his name as the Senate staffer who helped drive Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez from office by uncovering and investigating the Bush Administration's firing of prosecutors for allegedly political purposes. (See pictures of Osama bin Laden.)

Bharara will have to make the case under very unusual circumstances. "The challenge for prosecutors is to try and present a case that is not tainted by evidence that is inadmissible," says Joshua Dratel, a criminal lawyer in New York who has appealed cases against terrorists on the basis of torture allegations. Holder testified at his Senate-confirmation hearings earlier this year that he believes waterboarding is torture, and any evidence obtained after Mohammed's waterboarding will likely be inadmissible.

That means the government will likely have to rely on evidence that predates the 2003 waterboarding, as well as Mohammed's 2002 statement to al-Jazeera in which he took credit for the attack. Holder said at his press conference announcing the trials Friday that he has seen evidence previously unavailable that made him confident the prosecution will be successful. "If the government's going to prosecute Mohammed for 9/11, it will have diligently and thoroughly scrubbed the evidence to obtain certainty" that it can make the case, says David Laufman, a Bush Administration prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia, who tried and won cases against al-Qaeda members charged in terrorist plots.

But even if the government can make a strong case without the tainted evidence, Mohammed's treatment could cause problems. It's possible - though not likely - that a court could rule that the government doesn't have the right to prosecute someone who has been severely abused in custody. (Previously, suspects have been released even when their abuse didn't prejudice evidence against them, but there's no clear precedent for terrorism cases.) Other issues likely to be raised by the defense, says Dratel, are finding a jury that can be considered impartial, especially blocks from the World Trade Center site, and whether Mohammed's rights to a speedy trial have been violated. (See pictures of Pakistan's vulnerable North-West Frontier Province.)

Bharara will not be alone on the case. Holder jointly assigned it to him and Neil McBride, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. The Justice Department says the two men work well together, but not everyone agrees. "That's going to be ugly," says a former prosecutor who knows both men. The former prosecutor predicts that the Southern District will "run the show" because of its knowledge of the judges in New York, the proximity to the trial and the resources the office will be able to bring to bear.

Some Republicans and family members of the victims argue that the spectacle of trying Mohammed in federal court, instead of trying him before military commissions or simply holding the suspects indefinitely, risks endangering New Yorkers, exposing classified material and giving the plotters a platform to make themselves martyrs. "These terrorists planned and executed the mass murder of thousands of innocent Americans," Senator John Cornyn of Texas said Friday. "Treating them like common criminals is unconscionable."

The dispute over whether to try Mohammed in criminal court may not be resolved until a verdict is reached, but the debate is already raging. Says Dratel: "It's a victory for our system of justice and for the rule of law." Others disagree but think Bharara will succeed. "It's a dubious decision to send the case to federal court to be criminally prosecuted," says former top Bush White House lawyer William Burck, who worked with Bharara in the Southern District. "But if there's anyone who can pull it off, it's Preet Bharara."

Families of 9/11 Victims Divided Over Detainee Trial Plan

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575110,00.html

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a New York City courthouse was received by families of Sept. 11 victims with mixed reaction Friday.

Many of the relatives expressed opposition to any civilian trial for terror suspects — especially at the federal courthouse 1,000 yards from the spot where nearly 3,000 people died.

Some called the decision a terrible mistake, while others said the trial would give the men a platform to "spew" their anti-American hatred and invective.

Ed Kowalski, of the 9/11 Families for a Secure America Foundation, said: "To allow a terrorist and a war criminal the opportunity of having U.S. constitutional protections is a wrong thing to do and it’s never been done before. President Obama is wrong to do this."

"If we have to bring them to the United States, New York City is not the place to have it, let alone in a courthouse that is in the shadows of the twin towers," Lee Ielpi, whose firefighter son died in the 9/11 attacks, said. The city's wounds, he said, are simply still too raw.

"Ripping that scab open will create a tremendous hardship," he said.

"We have a president who doesn't know we're at war," said Debra Burlingame, whose brother, Charles Burlingame, had been the pilot of the hijacked plane that crashed into the Pentagon. She said she was sickened by "the prospect of these barbarians being turned into victims by their attorneys."

But Lorie Van Auken, whose husband Kenneth was killed in the World Trade Center attacks, voiced support for the decision, saying the trials would help to bring closure.

"I'm glad to hear they are going to be brought to New York to the scene of the crime and giving the families that were affected the chance to actually watch the trial," Van Auken told Reuters.

Valerie Lucznikowska, whose nephew died at the World Trade Center, said she would not care if the suspects sounded off in court, so long as the victims' families got to see them put on trial.

"What are words? It was a horrible thing to have 3,000 people killed," she said.

Trying the men in civilian court is a risky move and is likely to confront a host of difficult issues, including rough treatment of detainees, sensitive intelligence gathering and the potential spectacle of defiant terrorists disrupting proceedings.

U.S. civilian courts prohibit evidence obtained through coercion, and a number of detainees were questioned using harsh methods some call torture.

Holder insisted both the court system and the untainted evidence against the five men are strong enough to deliver a guilty verdict and the penalty he expects to seek: a death sentence for the deaths of nearly 3,000 people who were killed when four hijacked jetliners slammed into the towers, the Pentagon, and a field in western Pennsylvania.

What Happens If a 9/11 Terrorist Defendant is Found Not Guilty?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpu...ot-guilty.html

November 15, 2009 4:08 AM

"I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice," President Obama said in Tokyo. "The American people will insist on it and my administration will insist on it."

But what happens if KSM or any of the other 9/11 defendants the Obama administration is bringing to New York for criminal prosecutions -- including Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi -- are somehow found not guilty?

Attorney General Eric Holder brushed off the question, saying, "I would not have authorized the bringing of these prosecutions unless I thought that the outcome -- in the outcome we would ultimately be successful. I will say that I have access to information that has not been publicly released that gives me great confidence that we will be successful in the prosecution of these cases in federal court."

Not everyone is so confident, of course. KSM, for instance, was subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques" that many consider torture. This includes being waterboarded 183 times in a one month. Could this undermine the case against him?

Fears of giving KSM the rights afforded defendants in a criminal case have led some to conclude that a military tribunal might be a better venue for him.

In September 2006, debating the Military Commissions Act, then-Sen. Obama said KSM and those like him would get "basically a full military trial with all the bells and whistles. He's going to have counsel, he's going to be able to present evidence, he's going to be able to rebut the government's case. Because the feeling is that he's guilty of a war crime and to do otherwise might violate some of our agreements under the Geneva Conventions."

"I think that's good that we're going to provide him with some procedure and process," then-Sen. Obama said. "I think we will convict him and I think he will be brought to justice. I think justice will be carried out in his case."

But when Holder announced on Friday that five defendants would face military tribunals, KSM was not among them.

In June, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian national, was brought to the Metropolitan Correctional Center to face 286 separate criminal charges stemming from his alleged role in the Aug. 7, 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, including conspiring with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to kill Americans, and a separate charges of murder for each of the 224 people killed embassy bombings.

We asked White House press secretary Robert Gibbs what would happen if Ghailani is found not guilty?

Gibbs wouldn't bite but the question is important. If he will be freed, that prompts questions of national security and whether civilian courts are as appropriate as other venues for such trials. If he won't be freed despite being found not guilty that undermines the credibility of the trial.

"We will talk about what happens about a verdict when a verdict comes," Gibbs said.

The following day, the Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, asked “if we’re going to treat this terrorist detainee as a common civilian criminal, what will happen to Ghailani if he’s found not guilty? And what will happen to other detainees the administration wants to try in civilian courts if they are found not guilty? Will they be released? If so, where? In New York? In American communities? Or will they be released overseas, where they could return to terror and target American soldiers or innocent civilians?”

McConnell continued: “If Ghailani isn’t allowed to go free, will he be detained by the government? If so, where will he be detained? Would the administration detain him on U.S. soil, despite the objections of Congress and the American people?”

McConnell said the questions about Ghailani resemble the questions about Guantanamo in general.

“On the question of Guantanamo, it became increasingly clear over time that the administration announced its plan to close the facility before it actually had a plan,” he said. “If the administration has a plan for holding Ghailani if he’s found not guilty, then it needs to share that plan with the Congress. These kinds of questions are not insignificant. They involve the safety of the American people.”

Navy lawyer: Defending 9/11 suspects a patriotic duty

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/navy-law...atriotic-duty/

By Agence France-Presse
Sunday, November 15th, 2009 -- 8:32 pm

"It's perfectly patriotic," said US Navy Commander Suzanne Lachelier, a military attorney appointed to represent one of the accused September 11 plotters.

She is one of only a handful of Americans who work to defend those who committed the horrific attacks in 2001 that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States.

"Defending the US Constitution, that's what we do as prosecutors, but also as lawyers for the defense," this young dynamic woman told AFP.

"It's about presenting the rights of the accused -- it's not at all about the facts."

Lachelier was appointed to represent Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni citizen -- and one-time roommate of suspected 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta -- whom she says suffers from severe mental problems.

President Barack Obama's administration announced Friday that Binalshibh and four other alleged co-plotters of the worst ever attacks on US soil, including self-proclaimed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, would be tried in US federal court in New York city, just steps away from the scene of their crime.

"It's historic. There are a lot of things that you don't normally deal with in a regular criminal case," said Michael Acuff, who helps Sheikh Mohammed -- known as KSM -- represent himself.

"A regular criminal case isn't affected by new laws that are changing in the middle of the case or by... political concerns at the national level like these cases are, and it is not affected by the types of things that our government has said happened to Mr Mohammed."

As military reservists, the two lawyers joined in early 2008 the defense team set up by the Pentagon to assist Guantanamo Bay detainees facing trial before military commissions -- special tribunals established by Obama's predecessor George W. Bush.

Mohammed and his co-defendants spent years in secret CIA prisons where they were subjected to other interrogation methods, such as sleep deprivation, incessant loud music, and being forced to stand for long hours in uncomfortable positions.

In announcing the administration's decision, Attorney General Eric Holder vowed the co-conspirators would stand trial "before an impartial jury" and said he expected to push for the death penalty.

The five are currently held at Guantanamo, the US naval base in southern Cuba where they have already been charged with murder under the much-criticized military commissions system.

After spending years in secret CIA prisons undergoing harsh interrogation techniques that some say amount to torture, the alleged plotters gave these uniformed lawyers a rather cool reception.

"These cases make you think about your own philosophy about justice. They make you think about your own religious beliefs," noted Acuff.

"There are things in these cases that make you evaluate yourself and your country and obviously a normal case does not often do that."

Sheikh Mohammed, a Pakistani, was waterboarded -- subjected to simulated drowning -- 183 times during his years in US custody.

The evidence US agents obtained from the accused under coercion has raised serious questions about how they could be convicted in any regular US court of law.

Acuff, a veteran lawyer in his fifties, does not hide how much his client holds him in low esteem. At their very first hearing in June 2008, Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow defendants demanded to be rid of their court-appointed American lawyers.

Two of them, including Binalshibh, were not granted their request. And military commissions rules require that all defendants be assigned a military lawyer; those who represent themselves receive a stand-by counsel.

For Adam Thurschwell, a civilian defense lawyer specializing in death penalty matters, the military commissions system "was so grotesquely unfair" that he could not resist a chance to "make a contribution to the fairness of a capital case."

"Nobody's in favor of terrorism," he stressed.

But "a good defense lawyer wants to get his client a fair trial. That's very difficult to do and harder the more infamous the defendant is."

That position remains true for these attorneys even after long hours and countless pages of legal challenges to the system as a whole, an appearance before the Supreme Court and only three completed trials.

"For a penal lawyer, the most important thing is to personalize, to humanize a client hated by everyone," Lachelier said.

Pointing to her client's legal troubles -- he has been treated with psychotropic drugs at Guantanamo -- she hopes to convince a jury of angry New Yorkers to "not exaggerate his role" in the plot that led to the September 11 attacks.

Giuliani furious about 9/11 trial decision

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/g...#ixzz0X1qEazBM

By DAPHNE RETTER and CATHY BURKE
Posted: 4:11 AM, November 16, 2009

Stop coddling the 9/11 killers -- the war on terror is far from over, former Mayor Rudy Giuliani fumed yesterday.

The decision by the Obama administration to put the self-proclaimed mastermind of the terror attacks and four accomplices on trial in New York is pure politics, Giuliani charged in interviews yesterday on Fox News and CNN.

The decision, he said, proclaims, "both in substance and reality, the war on terror, in their point of view, is over."

"There seems to be an over-concern with the rights of terrorists and a lack of concern with the rights of the public."

He noted that terror chief Khalid Sheik Mohammed "asked to be brought to New York" when he was first arrested.

"I didn't think we were in the business of granting the requests of terrorists."

The Democratic administration's plan to try Mohammed and his accused co-conspirators in federal criminal trials in New York is a shift from the Republican Bush administration's anti-terror strategy -- which created military tribunals for all suspects held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Obama administration plans to close Guantanamo.

The five suspects have been accused of conspiring to finance, train and direct the 19 hijackers who seized four airliners used in the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 people.

Their trial here, Giuliani said, would be a waste of "millions and millions of dollars."

"Anyone that tells you this doesn't create additional security problems, of course, isn't telling you the truth," he said.

Other Republicans echoed similar concerns in interviews on CBS, Fox and CNN.

"They [the terrorists] are going to do everything they can to disrupt it and make it a circus and allow them to use it as a platform to push their ideology," said Michigan Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House intelligence committee.

But White House senior adviser David Axelrod shot back, "We believe that these folks should be tried in New York City . . . near where their heinous acts were conducted, in full view, in our court system."

He also reiterated the White House intention to close Guantanamo. "We are going to get it done," he said.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on NBC's "Meet The Press" that "I want to see them brought to justice. The most important thing for me is that, you know, they pay the ultimate price for what they did to us on 9/11."

Mayor Bloomberg applauded the decision.

He said he had "great confidence" that the NYPD and feds would "handle security expertly."

Democratic Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, whose district includes Ground Zero, said, "Would I prefer it elsewhere? Probably, but you know at this point it's here, and let's just make sure that we get the security and the resources that we need."

The administration has to give Congress 45 days' notice of its intent to transfer Guantanamo detainees from military to civilian lockups.

As the trial nears -- proceedings aren't expected to start for at least two years -- the detainees will sit it out at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan, where a special unit is set aside for terror suspects.

Plans to try 9/11 suspect in NYC draw fire

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...mohammed_N.htm

By Kevin Johnson, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder had just announced that accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged accomplices would stand trial in New York when the blistering critiques erupted.

"Unconscionable," declared Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. "Dangerous," said former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani. "An unnecessary risk," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. Democrat Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia called Friday's decision to move Mohammed from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, misguided, saying war criminals "do not belong in our courts."

Legal analysts describe the decision to try Mohammed in a civilian federal court as a high-stakes gamble by President Obama. They say the enormous legal challenges will test his administration's counterterrorism strategy and the strength of the U.S. criminal justice system.

"I can't think of another case with so much riding on it," says Ron Woods, a former federal prosecutor who represented convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says the prosecution can demonstrate the "power" of the U.S. justice system. "We have a judicial system that is the envy of the world," Leahy told CBS' Face the Nation. "Let's show the world that we can use that power."

For Obama, the decision marks a crucial step toward fulfilling his campaign pledge to close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, a stark reversal of Bush administration policy.

"The president believes it is important to get it done and to end this chapter in our history," senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said Sunday on CNN's State of the Union.

Mohammed, the most senior al-Qaeda operative in U.S. custody, now becomes the face of that effort. Although Holder says he is "confident" in the evidence, the path to a successful prosecution is littered with legal challenges:

• How will prosecutors win a case that may be damaged by interrogators who subjected Mohammed to waterboarding, which simulates drowning, after his 2003 capture?
• Can the U.S. court system stage an open trial in a case based on so much classified evidence?
• Will the case stay in New York, where defense lawyers will likely question whether impartial jurors can be found?

"We're plowing new ground here," says University of Wisconsin law professor Frank Tuerkheimer, a former U.S. prosecutor.

'A major problem'

The harsh interrogation methods used against Mohammed are the greatest threat to the prosecution, legal analysts say.

Within a month after his capture in March 2003, CIA officers waterboarded the top al-Qaeda operative 183 times, according to government documents made public this year.

"If I were defense counsel, I would feel fairly confident that I could get a substantial amount of (evidence) excluded," says John Gibbons, a former chief U.S. appeals court judge who supports Holder's decision. "It will likely be a major problem."

Holder suggested last week that he expected defense lawyers to raise the issue of torture. He said he is confident in the strength of the case, which he said features evidence not yet publicly known.

"I can't believe that (prosecutors) would bring a case like this in federal court, if they were relying on evidence that a court might not admit," says Jamie Gorelick, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration and 9/11 Commission member.

The intelligence argument
Among the most compelling arguments against moving Mohammed and the other 9/11 plotters to civilian court, Kyl says, is that the government could be forced to give up valuable intelligence sources and methods used to gather evidence against the al-Qaeda operatives.

Kyl says the 1995 trial of Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the "Blind Sheik," provided al-Qaeda with "valuable information" about U.S. intelligence operations, "making the job of fighting terrorists tougher." Rahman, convicted in a plot to blow up New York landmarks, was sentenced to life in prison.

Tuerkheimer says any potential loss of intelligence would likely be minimal because of the years that have elapsed between Mohammed's 2003 arrest and any future trial date.

"By the time his case comes to trial, the whole intelligence system will have been rebuilt," Tuerkheimer says.

A trial at Ground Zero
By choosing New York City as the site of the trial, Holder has invited a legal challenge to move it from the shadow of the 9/11 attacks, analysts say.

"I would think that this case would have to be moved out of New York just to give some semblance of a fair trial," Woods says. In 1997, the bombing prosecutions of Timothy McVeigh and Nichols were moved from the federal courthouse in Oklahoma City, which was damaged in the attack, to Denver. McVeigh was convicted and executed. Nichols is serving life in prison.

In New York, the federal courthouse is about 20 blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood.

On ABC's This Week, Giuliani said Sunday the high-profile trial "creates an extra risk" to the city.

Woods says a trial could attract threats from al-Qaeda or its sympathizers. "Are you going to have to guard the judge for the rest of his life?" he asks.

Yet Gorelick says New York has "ample experience" dealing with terrorism cases. "I think it is fitting that these suspects are going to be tried in New York," she says. "We have to be able to try cases someplace, why not New York?"

Giuliani, Clinton Split On Mohammed NYC Trial

http://wcbstv.com/topstories/911.tri...2.1313458.html

11/16/2009

The former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani, says putting suspected Sept. 11 terrorists on trial in New York City places residents there at unnecessary risk.

Giuliani tells CNN's "State of the Union" that a more appropriate choice would be military tribunals for the terror suspects. He says that option recognizes that the U.S. is at war with Islamic terrorists.

Giuliani was mayor of New York when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

Attorney General Eric Holder says he decided to bring the suspects to trial in New York because of the nature of the undisclosed evidence against them, because the 9/11 victims were mostly civilians, and because the attacks took place on U.S. soil.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, however, says she has no problem with Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try in New York City five alleged terrorists involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.

A former senator from New York, Clinton tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that she understands that trials will be a painful experience for the families of those who died.

Holder says he plans to bring the professed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial in a courtroom near the site of the World Trade Center.

Clinton says she thinks it's important to note that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other officials believe that holding the trials in the city is appropriate.

New Yorkers are taking sides over the terror trial for the accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks. "I think it's a logistical and security nightmare for the American People," Alice Hoagland, mother of a 9/11 victim, said.

Hoagland's son was a passenger on United Flight 93 when terrorists crashed it into a Pennsylvania field on that tragic day. Hoagland worries that bringing the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, and his accomplices to New York would make the city an even bigger target – and some security experts agree.

"Keeping the courthouse secure, keeping downtown secure, we've got the manpower to do that, but what we worry about is suicide bombers, something that could attract other terrorists like the ones that are being tried," Robert Strang, of Investigative Management Group, said.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says the NYPD is fully prepared.

"We've handled high profile events, certainly high profile trials in the past, and we'll be able to do it," Kelly said.

"I am pleased that they're moving these trials to New York near the scene of the crime, giving the families that were most affected [the opportunity] to see the trials," Lorie Van Auken, wife of a 9/11 victim, said.

Van Auken lost her husband, Kenneth, on September 11, and she says she'll be in the federal courtroom in New york for the terror trial.

She says the military court proceedings in Guantanamo Bay were not open enough.

"It would be very assuring to me and a lot of others to see the American system of justice work," Van Auken said.

Some relatives fear the suspects could be freed on a technicality, that a defense attorney could challenge Mohammed's confession to planning the attacks. The government admitted to using water-boarding interrogation techniques on him 183 times in 2003.

"But ultimately, the administration would not have put these five individuals into the federal system, I think, if they weren't convinced they could get a conviction," CBS News security consultant Juan Zarate said.

Defense lawyers could argue that Khalid Sheik Mohammed's six years in detention have already violated his right to a fair trial. They could also challenge if it's possible to get an impartial jury in New York, where nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11.

Obama's error by trial: Civilian justice for 9/11 plotters is profound, dangerous mistake

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/...#ixzz0X7gsy3QG

Tuesday, November 17th 2009, 4:00 AM

Related NewsBombing at police station in northwestern Pakistan kills fourRadical imam: Fort Hood gunman 'trusted' me, but I didn't insitgate rampageGunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms abduct and kill 13 in BaghdadPaterson: 9/11 mastermind shouldn't be tried in NYC9/11 workers, first responders to rally for help in D.C.The foolhardiness of President Obama's decision to try the mastermind of 9/11 and four cohorts in civilian court grows ever clearer as the outlines of the proceedings take shape.

It is offensive that Obama gave his blessings to designating Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his Al Qaeda crew as common criminals rather than as enemy combatants, perpetrators of the worst attack on American soil from abroad.

But that offense, high as it is, pales in comparison with the serious practical and legal consequences of hauling these avowed enemies of the nation into Manhattan Federal Court with all the rights and protections under the Constitution.

Such as Mohammed's right to rummage through the government's intelligence and investigative files for information that is purportedly useful to his defense - but will be more helpful to Al Qaeda operatives in the field.

(Oh, so that's what the CIA has been up to!)

Such as Mohammed's right to mount a defense that attempts to put the U.S. on trial for supposed human rights violations in the detention and interrogation of prisoners.

Such as Mohammed's right to act as his own lawyer even as he perverts protections he has been granted by making a circus of the trial.

As we have said time and again, Mohammed should rightly stand before the bar of a military commission. That's where he had been, and that's where Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder should have kept him. In fact, almost a year ago, Mohammed & Co. announced that they wanted to plead guilty before such a tribunal and get on with their executions.

Although military commissions have been okayed by Congress and upheld by the courts as providing fair due process, Obama pressed forward with closing the Guantanamo camp and bringing terror suspects into civilian courts.

But Mohammed? The admitted architect of an attack plotted and launched from abroad? A foreign national who had concocted previous such schemes with the connivance and support of Osama Bin Laden?

Mohammed is not just a terror suspect. He's not the guy who wanted to bomb the Herald Square subway station, or the guy who schemed to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge. He is an unrepentant war criminal who is determined to harm the U.S. by any means possible.

A civilian trial needlessly - and thus foolhardily - enhances his ability to accomplish his goals. Critically, for example, a military commission would have the power to limit Mohammed's personal access - as opposed to his lawyer's access - to intelligence and investigative files.

This is no small matter. Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, has said sensitive material went within days from the defendants to Bin Laden.

We take a backseat to no one in craving vengeance for the mass murder of 9/11. And we would join the many New Yorkers who would take pleasure in participating in exacting justice. But we would do so knowing that Obama, in pursuit of misguided ideology and the fanciful notion that the world will think more highly of America, has taken a profoundly wrong step that will undermine the war on terror and increase the threat to New York.

Gov. Paterson Blasts Decision to Hold 9/11 Trials in New York

http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local...-70267232.html

By HASANI GITTENS

Governor David Paterson hasn't gotten much support from the Obama administration, so maybe he's only returning the favor.

The gov Monday criticized the White House's decision to hold the September 11 trials in New York, saying it aggrivated a still sore wound for the city.

"This is not a decision that I would have made," Paterson said after a ceremony at a new City Universrity of New York campus in Harlem. "Terrorism isn't just attack, it's anxiety and I think you feel the anxiety and frustration of New Yorkers who took the bullet for the rest of the country.

"Over 2,700 lives were lost. It's very painful, we're still having trouble getting over it, we still have been unable to rebuild that site. And having those terrorists tried so close to the attack is going to be an encumbrance on all New Yorkers," he said. "But that is the decision that the federal government has made.

Paterson said the state has "taken every preparation and we have undergone every amount of research as to what that trial will cause in terms of our emergency preparedness and our homeland security protocol, and we will cooperate to the fullest extent with the federal government and with Mayor Bloomberg and the New York City Police Department and hopefully this trial will go without incident."

While Mayor Bloomberg and some other New Yorkers have said that the decision to hold civilian federal trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other 9/11 conspirators in Manhattan was a good one, Paterson is siding with former Mayor Rudy Giuliani in his critique of Attorney General Eric Holder's plan.

Asked if he thought the trial should have been a military tribunal instead of civilian, Paterson joked a little.

“I don’t think that I’ve had a chance -- you know I’ve been a little busy lately -- and I haven’t had a chance to read the material that would have informed me as to whether or not it would have been better for it to have been e a military tribunal or whether it should have been a civilian trial," said the governor, who has been embroiled in battles over the budget, gay marriage, license plates, state authorities and even the legitimacy of his 2010 campaign.

On Friday, Paterson had been more reserved in his judgement of the decision, saying "I do not understand why the decommissioneed [the terror suspects] from serving or being tried on Guantanamo Bay, but that's a decision that the federal government made and our job is to help them."

Poll: Most Americans want military trial for 9/11 suspects

http://rawstory.com/2009/11/poll-ame...-911-suspects/

By Agence France-Presse
Monday, November 16th, 2009 -- 9:25 pm

Almost two-thirds of Americans disagree with the decision by President Barack Obama's administration to try the suspected 9/11 mastermind in a civilian court, a poll showed Monday.

Sixty-four percent of those surveyed said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed should be tried in a military court, while only 34 percent agreed with Obama that the civilian judicial system was the best way forward, the CNN poll said.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Friday that Sheikh Mohammed and four suspected co-plotters of the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people would be tried in New York in a civilian court.

Sixty percent of those questioned in the CNN poll agreed that Sheikh Mohammed should be brought to the United States to stand trial, while 37 percent opposed the move.

There was overwhelming support for Holder's announcement that prosecutors would seek the death penalty for Sheikh Mohammed.

Seventy-eight percent of those polled said they thought he should be executed if found guilty, almost a quarter of whom said they didn't normally support capital punishment.

More than a third of the 1,014 Americans questioned by CNN in the weekend poll, 34 percent, said they didn't think Sheikh Mohammed would receive a fair trial if brought to a US civilian court.

Friday's announcement, key to Obama's attempts to try and shutter Guantanamo Bay by January, was blasted by families of the victims of the September 11 attacks and the president's political opponents.

Former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani said it was as an "unnecessary risk" to New York's security that would give an "unnecessary advantage" to the accused.

Snipers, dogs and small army to keep city secure during 9/11 terrorists trial blocks from WTC site

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...#ixzz0XDVfWlMC

BY Patrice O'Shaughnessy, Rocco Parascandola and Alison Gendar
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS
Saturday, November 14th 2009, 4:00 AM

Security will be at an all-time high for the trial of five accused 9/11 terrorists - just a few blocks and eight years away from the lost twin towers of the World Trade Center.

Rooftop snipers, armored vehicles and lock-down zones around the Pearl Street courthouse are part of the plan to insure safety during the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his cohorts.

"It's highly appropriate that those accused in the deaths of nearly 3,000 human beings in New York City be tried here, and the NYPD is prepared for the security required," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly vowed.

The men are in the Guantanamo Bay terror prison and likely won't be brought here for weeks, but New York's law enforcement leaders are busy planning to keep things safe and secure.

The U.S. marshals will handle courthouse security, and their main mission is to protect those on trial. The job for the FBI and the NYPD is protecting the public from anyone hoping to disrupt the trial or gain international recognition by trying to free the defendants.

Security will include 24-hour fixed canine posts and a counterassault team car - an unmarked bulletproof SUV in the area.

The NYPD's heavily armed Hercules teams will lock down and sweep the area before suspects are moved from the federal lockup to the courtroom via a not-so-secret underground tunnel.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder noted the tunnel means the accused terrorists "never have to see the light of day."

Behind the scenes, the FBI, NYPD and CIA intelligence officers will take the temperature of the Muslim community while monitoring chatter from known terror groups to Internet chat rooms.

Holder said New York, after handling a number of terrorist trials in the past, was the clear choice for the trial of the 9/11 detainees.

"I asked the Marshals Service to look at a number of sites and tell me... 'Which one is going to be the safest to bring these cases?'" Holder said. "They said New York."

The city has handled several high-stakes, high-security terror trials since 1995.

That's when the city mobilized against potential retaliation following the clean-sweep terrorism convictions of radical Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and nine followers. Their terrorist bombing plot targeted the United Nations, the FBI's New York headquarters, the Lincoln and Holland tunnels and the George Washington Bridge.

During the 2001 trial of the four men accused of plotting to blow up American embassies for Osama Bin Laden, bomb-sniffing dogs patrolled the court corridors during jury selection.

New Yorkers took the news, and the prospect of additional security measures, in stride.

"I'm not worried. I think it would be symbolic if he was tried and convicted here - a just result," said lawyer James Powers, 37, who witnessed the 9/11 attack from his office window on Broadway. "To the extent we are already a target, I don't think this really makes us more of one."

Holder: Don't fear trial of 'coward' 9/11 plotter

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...pXc9gD9C1UG7G1

By DEVLIN BARRETT (AP) – 53 minutes ago

WASHINGTON — Attorney General Eric Holder is defending his decision to put the professed Sept. 11 mastermind on trial in New York — and urging critics of the plan not to cower in the face of terrorists.

Holder is set to testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, where lawmakers are likely to spar over the attorney general's decision last week to send Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged henchmen from a detention center at Guantanamo Bay to New York to face a civilian federal trial.

Critics of Holder's decision — mostly Republicans — have argued the trial will give Mohammed a world stage to spout hateful rhetoric.

In remarks prepared before Wednesday's hearing, Holder says such concerns are misplaced, because judges can control unruly defendants and any pronouncements by Mohammed would only make him look worse.

"I have every confidence the nation and the world will see him for the coward he is," Holder says in written testimony obtained by The Associated Press. "I'm not scared of what (Mohammed) will have to say at trial — and no one else needs to be either."

Addressing other concerns about the case, the attorney general says the public and the nation's intelligence secrets can be protected during a public trial in civilian court.

"We need not cower in the face of this enemy," Holder says. "Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our resolve is firm, and our people are ready."

Holder announced Friday that five accused Sept. 11 conspirators currently held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be transferred to federal court in Manhattan to face trial — just blocks from the site of the former World Trade Center.

Five other suspects, Holder said, will be sent to face justice before military commissions in the United States, though a location for those commissions has not yet been determined.

The actual transfer of the suspects to New York is still many weeks away. The transfers are a key step in President Barack Obama's pledge to close the detention center at Guantanamo, which currently houses some 215 detainees. The administration is not expected to meet its January deadline to shutter the facility.

The president, traveling in China Wednesday, echoed Holder's comments about the New York trial.

"I think this notion that we have to be fearful that these terrorists possess some special powers that prevent us from presenting evidence against them, locking them up and exacting swift justice, I think that has been a fundamental mistake," Obama said in an interview with CNN.

In addition to the ten detainees named Friday, Holder is expected to send others to trials and commissions in the United States.

Another, larger group of detainees is expected to be released to other countries. Some, the president has said, are too dangerous to be released and cannot be put on trial, and those detainees will continue to be imprisoned.

The attorney general says his decisions between trials and commissions were based strictly on which venues he thought would bring the strongest prosecution.

Opponents of the plan, including Holder's predecessor Michael Mukasey, have accused him of adopting a "pre-9/11" approach to terrorism.

Holder emphatically denies that.

"We are at war, and we will use every instrument of national power — civilian, military, law enforcement, intelligence, diplomatic and others — to win," Holder says.

Separately, a member of the Judiciary Committee, Democrat Charles Schumer of New York, is urging the administration to reimburse the city for what he says could be $75 million in extra security costs related to the terror trials.

Tough job for prosecutors to get death penalty for evil 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_c...#ixzz0XDWYe4Jb

BY James Gordon Meek
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Wednesday, November 18th 2009, 4:31 AM

WASHINGTON - Prosecutors who will try the 9/11 plotters in New York face a "Mission Impossible" task of winning death sentences for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his henchmen.

Many veteran federal prosecutors - including those working in counterterrorism - were shocked by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's decision on a civilian trial in Manhattan for the jihadists.

That's because in the feds' few past tries at the death penalty for foreign terrorists, they lost. And New York juries are seen as among the least likely to agree - unanimously, as the law requires - on execution.

Still, legal experts say the Sept. 11 attacks that killed 2,973 people - most of them just blocks from the Foley Square courthouse - could be the exception.

"If New Yorkers were ever going to do it, this is the case," said Karen Greenberg, director of New York University's Center on Law and Security.

Holder, ruling out military trials, announced last week that KSM and his cohorts would be hauled from Guantanamo Bay to Manhattan to face justice. In calling for death sentences, he set a high bar for the Obama administration to be able to claim success.

The last time a Manhattan federal jury faced such a choice was July 2001. It spared two men convicted in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, which killed 224 people.

Seven of 12 jurors decided that, if executed, one defendant "will be seen as a martyr and his death may be exploited by others to justify future terrorist acts."

That show of mercy did not dissuade the hijackers KSM masterminded from destroying the twin towers two months later.

The feds also sought the death penalty for Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in 2006. But a lone juror in Alexandria, Va., balked, and Moussaoui is serving life at the "Supermax" prison in Florence, Colo.

Frances Townsend, an ex-New York federal prosecutor who was former President George W. Bush's top counterterror adviser, said death verdicts this time aren't out of the question, but the odds are against it.

She also maintained life without parole at "Supermax" could better service justice.

KSM has said he wants to be martyred by execution, she noted, and, "Florence would be much worse for them."

Townsend recalled conversations with legendary FBI agent John O'Neill, a friend of hers, who was killed on 9/11 as the World Trade Center's security chief.

O'Neill had brought many terrorists back to the city to face justice, but agreed with the jury that rejected death sentences in the Africa bombings. He feared death sentences would help Al Qaeda cast the condemned as martyrs.

First US trial of 9/11 case was full of surprises

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...yxshQD9C1HB002

By MATTHEW BARAKAT and MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN (AP) – 15 hours ago

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Zacarias Moussaoui was a clown who could not keep his mouth shut, according to his old al-Qaida boss, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. But Moussaoui was surprisingly tame when tried for the 9/11 attacks — never turning the courtroom into the circus of anti-U.S. tirades that some fear Mohammed will create at his trial in New York.

And that wasn't the only surprise during Moussaoui's six-week 2006 sentencing trial here — a proceeding that might foreshadow how the upcoming 9/11 trial in New York will go.

Skeptics who feared prosecutors would be hamstrung by how much evidence was secret were stunned at the enormous amount of classified data that was scrubbed, under pressure from the judge, into a public version acceptable to both sides.

Prosecutors were surprised when they failed to get the death penalty — by the vote of one juror.

No one was more surprised than Moussaoui himself: At the end he concluded an al-Qaida member like him could get a fair trial in a U.S. court.

"I had thought that I would be sentenced to death based on the emotions and anger toward me for the deaths on Sept. 11," Moussaoui said in an appeal deposition taken after he was sentenced to life in prison. "(B)ut after reviewing the jury verdict and reading how the jurors set aside their emotions and disgust for me and focused on the law and the evidence ... I now see that it is possible that I can receive a fair trial."

All that suggests the dire predictions of critics and confident assertions of proponents should be viewed skeptically as prosecutors prepare to put Mohammed, the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and four of his alleged henchmen on trial in a civilian federal court.

The five had been headed for a military tribunal at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until Attorney General Eric Holder announced last week he would charge them in civilian court and expects to seek the death penalty.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who presided over Moussaoui's trial — the first in this country over 9/11 — believes it proved federal courts can handle terror cases: "I've reached the conclusion that the system does work," she said in 2008.

The first lesson from Moussaoui's case: Don't expect a speedy trial.

Moussaoui was charged in December 2001 with conspiracy for his role. The case churned through years of pretrial hearings and appeals as judges sought to balance national security with Moussaoui's constitutional rights, often over what evidence could be used.

Documents later introduced at trial showed Moussaoui and Mohammed were well acquainted and Mohammed told interrogators he planned to use Moussaoui as a pilot for a second wave of hijacked jetliner attacks — plans that were eventually aborted. But Mohammed considered Moussaoui a problematic operative, who took instructions poorly and recklessly ignored directions to minimize communications.

Eventually, in 2005, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to conspiring with the Sept. 11 hijackers. Under the complex rules for federal death penalty cases, a separate sentencing trial was held in 2006 to determine whether Moussaoui would lose his life or spend the rest of it in prison. In the first phase, jurors concluded Moussaoui's actions were eligible for the death penalty, but in the second phase they spared his life — thanks to a lone holdout juror.

During the long run-up to trial, Moussaoui's abusive tirades in handwritten motions and outbursts in hearings created concerns the jury trial would devolve into chaos. Brinkema threatened to lock him in a separate room watching by video if he tried that.

Mindful of that threat, Moussaoui sat quietly at his separate table flanked by deputy marshals. On the few occasions he was called upon to speak, Brinkema kept him tightly on topic.

His theatrics were confined to one-liners — like "Victory for Moussaoui! God curse you all!" — that he tossed off to spectators as he left the courtroom after the jury departed for lunch or the day.

In military tribunal hearings at Guantanamo, Mohammed also showed a propensity for grandstanding. In one letter released by that tribunal, he referred to the attacks as a "noble victory" and urged U.S. authorities to "pass your sentence on me and give me no respite."

One of Moussaoui's lawyers, Edward MacMahon, isn't worried about Mohammed's behavior in court. "Federal judges deal all the time with defendants who try to disrupt cases," he said.

MacMahon, himself the target of some of Moussaoui's epithets, said he thought the trial "was a very dignified process."

Lead prosecutor Rob Spencer, now with Lockheed Martin Corp., said the Moussaoui trial allowed the public to see that Moussaoui took pride in the terror created by the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

"A valuable part of the Moussaoui trial was that we got an unvarnished, public view of this guy ... of what we're up against" in dealing with al-Qaida terrorists, Spencer said.

Sorting through classified evidence should be easier in the upcoming case, experts said. First, the Moussaoui case generated detailed appellate rulings to guide lower courts. Second, much that was highly sensitive in 2003 may be far less so now.

On the other hand, there was no allegation Moussaoui was tortured into confessing, but coerced confessions or statements might be significant at Mohammed's trial. U.S. civilian courts bar evidence obtained under coercion, which could exclude what Mohammed told investigators after, as the Justice Department has acknowledged, he was waterboarded 183 times.

But there are also statements Mohammed made much later bragging about his role, and statements by others subjected to less harsh interrogation methods that fewer people consider to be torture, so there's grist for much legal argument.

Paul McNulty, U.S. attorney here when Moussaoui was prosecuted, said there is a crucial difference in the two cases: Moussaoui pleaded guilty, so the sentencing trial focused only on his punishment and there was no chance he'd go free. No one knows whether any New York defendants will contest their guilt.

McNulty wondered whether the public is willing to accept the chance of an acquittal.

McNulty expects New York judges to be as tough as Brinkema on issues like ensuring defendants access to witnesses. "It could get complicated very quickly," he said.

"It's not supposed to be easy," defense counsel MacMahon said. "The law makes it very difficult to obtain a death sentence. The government basically has to pitch a perfect game to win a death penalty."

9/11 suspects have no response to announcement of trial in New York
The alleged 9/11 plotters were `stoic' and polite upon hearing that they will moved to New York City for a federal trial.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nati...y/1338879.html

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
crosenberg@MiamiHerald.com

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- The alleged 9/11 conspirators neither greeted with joy nor trepidation the news that they would be taken to New York City to face a civilian trial for the Sept. 11 attacks.

"They were stoic," detention center commander Rear Adm. Tom Copeman said Tuesday.

"They did not seem surprised," he added. "They basically just said, `Thank you for the information.' There was nothing dramatic one way or the other."

Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Friday that confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four co-defendants, all former CIA captives, would be charged by federal prosecutors "to answer to their alleged crimes in a courtroom just blocks away from where the Twin Towers once stood."

He urged a death penalty trial.

The five men got the notice over the weekend, said Copeman, from the chief Army jailer at Guantánamo, Col. Bruce Vargo, and the prison camps staff attorney, Navy Capt. Don Martin. They delivered copies of Holder's announcement in English and, for those who needed translation, in Pashto and Arabic.

All five have bragged about their alleged roles in the attacks. They said they welcomed martyrdom.

The five accused -- two Yemenis, a Saudi and the Pakistani Mohammed and his nephew -- are still charged before a military commission with the mass murder of nearly 3,000 people for allegedly directing, financing and providing training to the 19 hijackers who commandeered the aircraft that struck the Twin Towers, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001.

So, they will continue to meet twice monthly to plan a common defense strategy, Copeman said, as well as keep laptop computers the military prosecutor loaded with the evidence against them to help them prepare for their now aborted military tribunals.

Military Commissions spokesman Joe DellaVedova said the prosecution had no immediate plans to ask for the laptops back. They have had them for about a year.

The five alleged plotters had a defense strategy meeting Nov. 9 at the high-security courtroom at Camp Justice, called the Expeditionary Legal Complex. They were slated to meet again Nov. 30.

All five men are segregated on the base in a secret prison, called Camp 7. Unlike other portions of the detention center, the prison camp for former CIA captives has no live satellite television. That means they have not seen the massive TV coverage of the decision of plans to return them to the scene of the crime.

It also was not known if they had yet received newspaper clippings, which in the aftermath of Holder's announcement reported Republican denunciations and domestic security fears.

Obama on terror trials: KSM will die

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29661.html

11/18/2009

Americans who are troubled by the decision to send alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York for trial will feel better about it when he’s put to death, President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

During a round of network television interviews conducted during Obama’s visit to China, the president was asked about those who find it offensive that Mohammed will receive all the rights normally accorded to U.S. citizens when they are charged with a crime.

“I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him,” Obama told NBC’s Chuck Todd.

When Todd asked Obama if he was interfering in the trial process by declaring that Mohammed will be executed, Obama, a former constitutional law professor, insisted that he wasn’t trying to dictate the result.

“What I said was, people will not be offended if that's the outcome. I'm not pre-judging, I'm not going to be in that courtroom, that's the job of prosecutors, the judge and the jury,” Obama said. “What I'm absolutely clear about is that I have complete confidence in the American people and our legal traditions and the prosecutors, the tough prosecutors from New York who specialize in terrorism.”

In another interview, Obama said he had not tried to tell Attorney General Eric Holder whether the case involving KSM and four other alleged 9/11 plotters should be heard in federal court or before a military tribunal.

“I said to the attorney general, make a decision based on the law,” the president told CNN’s Ed Henry. “We have set up now a military commission system that is greatly reformed and so we can try terrorists in the forum. But I also have great confidence in our Article 3 courts, the courts that have tried hundreds of terrorist suspects who are imprisoned right now in the United States.”

Obama also suggested that critics of the decision are unwisely building the alleged Al Qaeda operatives into larger-than-life figures who require the U.S. to abandon its usual legal processes.

“I think this notion that somehow we have to be fearful, that these terrorists are –possess some special powers that prevent us from presenting evidence against them, locking them up and, you know, exacting swift justice, I think that has been a fundamental mistake,” the president declared.

Also in the interviews:

— Obama warned of a double-dip recession – another drop in economic growth that would reverse recent gains – if government spending continues to pile up.

“I think it is important to recognize that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, at some point, people would lose confidence in the economy. That could lead to a double-dip recession,” he told Fox News’ Major Garrett.

— He said he’s comfortable with the progress his administration has made so far. “A lot of our initiatives have not yet borne fruit, but we knew that something like Iran's nuclear program wasn't going to be solved in a year. The question is are we moving in the right direction? And I think there's no doubt that we are,” he said on CNN.

— In response to another question, Obama initially claimed that most of the deadlines his administration is reported to have missed were set by the press, though he later seemed to acknowledge that he set an aggressive schedule for passage of health care reform legislation.

On closing Guantanamo Bay prison, “we had a specific deadline that was missed, the rest of these deadlines that you're asserting often times are deadlines imposed by the media,” Obama told NBC.

— Obama suggested that the White House knew public goals for passing health care bills through both houses before the summer recess were optimistic, perhaps overly so. “Internally we understood Congress takes time, it's slow, the Senate is slow, that's how it's structured, those are the rules,” he said.

Obama said he expected to sign health care legislation by the time of his State of the Union speech in January, but he kept the pressure on by refusing to acknowledge that it is not likely to pass by year’s end. “You will not hear that from me,” he said.

— Obama said he hasn’t read a book by his half-brother who lives in China, who alleges that the father the two men shared abused him. Obama said he stopped by for about five minutes during the trip. “I don't know him well. I met him for the first time a couple of years ago,” Obama told CNN. “But it's no secret that my father was a troubled person. Anybody who's read my first book, "Dreams of My Father," knows that, you know, he had an alcoholism problem and that he didn't treat his families very well. And, you know, so, obviously, that's just a sad part of my history and my background. But it's not something that I spend a lot of time brooding over.”

Former N.J. Gov. Thomas Kean opposes trial in N.Y.C. for alleged mastermind of 9/11 attacks

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/200...kean_says.html

By Brian Donohue/The Star-Ledger
November 17, 2009, 10:59AM

NEW YORK -- Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the commission that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, today criticized the decision by the Obama administration to try the alleged mastermind of the attacks in federal court in New York.

In what he described as his first interview since the decision by United States Attorney General Eric Holder last week, Kean told WNYC radio he feared an open trial in Manhattan federal court would make the suspect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a "martyr" and "hero" among al Qaeda sympathizers around the world.

Mark Wilson/Getty ImagesThomas H. Kean, former New Jersey governor and chairman of the 9/11 Commission, and Co-Chair Lee H. Hamilton confer during a news conference in 2005 in Washington, D.C.
Kean's comments came in a radio interview with Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

Kean, a Republican who is also former governor of New Jersey, appeared on the program with fellow 9/11 commission member Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democrat.

Ben-Veniste took an opposing view of the decision, saying he thought a trial in civil court was appropriate and would demonstrate the power of the American justice system.

Trying Sept. 11 Suspects In U.S. A Political Gamble

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=120546400

by Liz Halloran
November 18, 2009

Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday stoutly defended his decision to try the Sept. 11 conspirators in U.S. federal court as driven by evidence, not politics.

During his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder as much as promised convictions of professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four alleged associates.

"Failure," Holder said, "is not an option."

But that assertion — and the audience laughter it prompted from Sept. 11 victims' family members opposed to his decision — suggest that Holder and President Obama are indeed taking a political gamble by deciding to bring the suspected terrorists from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York City to stand trial.

After all, said Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Herb Kohl during his questioning of Holder, "you never know what happens when you walk into a court of law" — and hand a decision to a jury.

Lines Drawn, But Not Clear
In the five days since Holder announced that the alleged Sept. 11 conspirators would be tried in federal court instead of by military commission in Guantanamo, political forces have arrayed for and against the decision, as expected.

But the partisan dividing lines are not easily drawn.

Some high-profile Republicans, including former New York mayor and failed presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani, have taken to the airwaves to denounce Holder. And Senate Republicans predictably roughed Holder up Wednesday, arguing that a civilian trial will give terrorists an international platform, compromise domestic safety and perhaps lead to the dissemination of classified material.

But Holder's decision has also elicited strong support from some unexpected GOP corners, and opposition from a handful of Democrats, including New York Gov. David Paterson and Virginia Sen. Jim Webb, a former secretary of the Navy.

GOP stalwarts Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform; David Keene, chairman of the American Conservative Union; and former Georgia Republican Sen. Bob Barr signed on to a statement asserting that civilian courts "are the proper forum for terrorism cases," and that federal prisons are "fully capable of safely holding" convicted terrorists.

Civilian trials, in the city where the worst of the Sept. 11 attacks occurred, will move the country toward closing Guantanamo, they said, where military commissions have convicted just three detainees in eight years.

On the other hand, Webb has argued that military commissions are a more appropriate venue.

GOP strategist John Feehery says he would advise Republicans to “go hard after” Holder’s decision to try the five Sept. 11 suspects in federal court.

“This is a perfect situation where you can make a case that they’re war prisoners and not common criminals,” Feehery said. “Holder is so vulnerable on this because he’s very liberal.”

House Republicans have introduced a discharge petition that would compel Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to allow a vote on legislation that could bar the administration from transferring or releasing Guantanamo prisoners to any state without the approval of the governor or legislature of that state. The petition on the "Keep Terrorists Out of America Act" needs the signatures of 218 members for approval; 169 members have currently signed on. Democrats control the House 258-177.

The intraparty divide on the issue perhaps influenced the largely silent conservative message machine Wednesday during and after Holder's appearance before the Judiciary Committee hearing.

Polls also show a split among Americans over where the Sept. 11 suspects should be tried. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 48 percent of those surveyed said they should be tried by military tribunals; 47 percent said they should be put on trial in the federal court system.

In a CNN poll that asked specifically whether Mohammed should be tried in a civilian criminal court or in a military court run by the armed forces, 64 percent preferred a military court trial, while 34 percent favored a criminal court. However, 60 percent of those surveyed by CNN said that no matter which court system is used, Mohammed should be brought to the U.S. to stand trial.

Courts Vs. Commissions: Not That Dissimilar?
The issue of civilian federal courts vs. military commissions is not as black and white as it has been portrayed, says former Bush administration official John Bellinger III.

"The trials were not going to be that dissimilar," says Bellinger, who was a legal adviser for the State Department and National Security Council.

"It's not going to be easy to do in New York City, but the idea that this is going to be a disaster is just not there," he said during a conference call Wednesday. "Federal prosecutors are more used to doing these kinds of cases."

In fact, Bellinger said, the Bush administration had begun to shore up the ranks of military prosecutors with federal prosecutors who had more experience trying big terrorism cases.

Holder has also downplayed concerns that a civilian trial could require the release of sensitive evidence that could be kept secret during a military tribunal. The rules of evidence in both venues, he said Wednesday, are largely the same.

During an interview Wednesday with NBC News, Obama was asked about those who had taken offense at the decision to try Mohammed in civilian court. "I don't think it would be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him," the president said.

His confidence, Obama said, came from “tough” New York investigators who “specialize in terrorism.”

A Bold Move
Holder dismissed the political and public relations aspect of his decision. But there is little doubt that it will have a profound effect at home and abroad.

Steven Simon of the Council of Foreign Relations said there needs to be a focus on the propaganda benefits of the civilian trials, particularly in the Arab world.

"Public relations is an important component of national security," says Simon, author of The Age of Sacred Terror and The Next Attack.

"There's a war for hearts and minds at the center of what the military refers to as 'the long war,' " he said during a conference call. "Whether this will have an effect — and how big — remains to be seen."

Sept. 11 Victims' Families Divided, Too
David Beamer's son, Todd, died on Sept. 11, 2001, when United Airlines Flight 93, commandeered by terrorists, crashed in Pennsylvania. He calls Holder's decision "unconscionable" and says he views it as an attempt by the Obama administration to exact retribution from the Bush administration.

"We don't need a show trial in the shadow of the terrorists' greatest achievement to further their efforts," said Beamer, who attended Wednesday's hearing. "I've tried to think if there's an American reason for doing this, and I can't come up with one."

He says that those who oppose Holder's decision will try to make it part of the conversation leading up to next year's midterm congressional elections.

But Lorie Van Auken, whose husband was killed in the attack on the World Trade Center's north tower, says she sees a powerful reason to bring the alleged terrorists to justice in New York City.

"The taint at Guantanamo is terrible," says Auken, one of the New Jersey widows who successfully pressed for the formation of the 9/11 Commission.

"The thing for me is that this is not about them; it's about us," she said. "If the evidence shows that these people are guilty and held accountable in civilian court, people will accept that verdict as legitimate."

"It's better than the alternative we've had: putting them in a black hole and torturing them," she said.

But she says she understands where Beamer and other family members who oppose federal trials are coming from.

"I understand wanting revenge, but at the end of the day, just getting revenge won't be sweet," she says. "If you show the people, if you show the rest of the world, 'Here's the evidence, here's the punishment' — that's justice."

Uncertain Road Ahead
In a sharp exchange with Holder Wednesday, GOP Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona asked why the attorney general would transfer Mohammed to a civilian court from a from a military system, where the alleged terrorist has said in the past he wants to plead guilty and be executed.

What's the gain? Kyl asked.

Holder's response: "I'm not going to base a determination on where these cases ought to be brought on what a terrorist — what a murderer — wants to do."

"He will not select the prosecution venue. I will select it,” Holder said. “And I have."

Of that, there's no doubt. But how that plays out politically in Washington, in New York City, and beyond will remain a very large —- and debatable — issue for years to come.

GOP senators grill Holder on decision to try 9/11 suspects in federal court

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont...2.4b520b5.html

12:00 AM CST on Thursday, November 19, 2009

WASHINGTON – In a series of testy exchanges, Republican senators confronted Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday over his decision to try the Sept. 11 terrorism suspects in civilian court.

President Barack Obama, meanwhile, expressed certainty that the suspects would be found guilty and executed.

In his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Holder didn't go as far as Obama did. But the nation's top prosecutor said he was confident justice would be delivered to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other accused plotters of the 9/11 attacks.

"Failure is not an option," Holder declared.

Opponents of the plan have accused him of adopting a "pre-9/11" approach to terrorism. Holder emphatically denied that.

"We are at war, and we will use every instrument of national power – civilian, military, law enforcement, intelligence, diplomatic and others – to win," Holder said.

But South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a military lawyer who has served active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, called the decision "a perversion of justice" by putting wartime enemies into the civilian criminal justice system.

"You have taken a wartime model that will allow flexibility when it comes to intelligence gathering, and you have compromised this country's ability to deal with people at war with us by interjecting into the system the possibility that they may be given the same constitutional rights as any American citizen," Graham said.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, asked Holder how he would respond if a federal judge were to rule that Mohammed wasn't read his Miranda rights to remain silent in the absence of a lawyer at the time of his detention, or if a judge decided to release Mohammed on a legal technicality.

"What if the federal judge orders the Justice Department to release him?" Cornyn asked. "Will you defy that order?"

Holder responded: "It's hard for me to imagine a set of circumstances under which, if he were acquitted, he would be released into the United States. ... There are other things that we have the capacity to do."

Holder said he foresaw no judicial obstacles to convicting the terrorism suspects and putting them to death.

"I do not see any legal impediments to our seeking the death penalty," he said. "We will obviously have to convince a jury of 12 people that the death penalty is appropriate."

Obama, in a TV interview during his tour of Asia, suggested that death sentences would vindicate Holder's and his decision to hold a federal trial for Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, which killed almost 3,000 Americans.

When the president was asked whether he understood why some people might take offense at the decision, which Holder announced last week, he told NBC News: "I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's [Mohammed] convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."

Obama, who is a lawyer, quickly added that he did not mean to suggest he was prejudging the outcome of Mohammed's trial.

Critics of Holder's decision – mostly Republicans – also have argued that the trial will give Mohammed a world stage to spout hateful rhetoric.

Holder said such concerns are misplaced, because judges can control unruly defendants, and any pronouncements by Mohammed would only make him look worse.

"I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is," Holder told the committee. "I'm not scared of what Khalid Shaikh Mohammed has to say at trial – and no one else needs to be, either."

Democrats on the panel were largely supportive of the administration's decision.

"We're the most powerful nation on earth; we have a justice system that is the envy of the world. We will not be afraid," said Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont.

Among the spectators in the hearing room were relatives of 9/11 victims. Alice Hoagland of Los Gatos, Calif., whose son Mark Bingham died when United Flight 93 crashed in a Pennsylvania field, told Holder that she took "great exception to your decision to give short shrift to military commissions."

Holder sought to reassure her that there was evidence, not yet made public, that makes federal court the best place to try Mohammed.

"I guess what I'm saying is trust me," he said.

"I will trust you. I will defer judgment," Hoagland replied.

Giuliani: 9/11 Trial Part of Left Wing Political Agenda

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2009/11...y5707770.shtml

11/19/2009

(CBS)Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said the Obama administration's decision to try professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a federal court is a political move to satisfy "left-wing critics" of military tribunals.

Attorney General Eric Holder has drawn heavy fire from Republicans and some Democrats since announcing last week that Mohammed and four alleged henchmen would be prosecuted in a civilian trial instead of a military tribunal. A CBS News poll released earlier this week shows Americans wary of the idea as well, with 54 percent opposed compared to 40 percent in favor.

Giuliani, who was mayor at the time of the World Trade Center attacks, said the move was part of a political agenda "because it makes no sense," during an appearance on CBS' "The Early Show" Thursday.

"The reality is that they could be tried in a military tribunal. There is no reason to try them in a civilian court. Others are going to be tried in the military tribunal. And the reality is we've never done this before. And this is something that was pushed very, very hard by the left wing for President Obama to do and he's been criticized for delaying in doing it."

The Obama administration has defended the decision and predicted a courtroom victory against Mohammed. Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee Wednesday that "failure is not an option."

And President Obama, speaking during his nine-day trip to Asia, said critics wouldn't be offended "when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him."

"Early Show" co-anchor Harry Smith pressed Giuliani on whether his views actually represented a "flip flop" from his position when blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was convicted in a New York federal court. At the time, Smith noted, Giuliani called it a "symbol of American justice."

"The reality is of course there was no military tribunal in 1993. It would have been absurd for me to argue for that," Giuliani said. "Now there's a military tribunal. And if there wasn't, I would be the first one to say try [Mohammed] in federal court … But military courts can provide justice just as well without the same unnecessary risk."

Torture could doom N.Y. trial against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 9/11 terrrorists

http://blog.nj.com/njv_guest_blog/20..._trial_ag.html

By Star-Ledger Guest Columnist
November 19, 2009, 5:24AM

The government’s decision to prosecute alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-conspirators as criminals puts the issue of torture squarely before the federal courts.

Given the government’s acknowledgment that Mohammed and his co-defendants were subject to harsh interrogation techniques that included repeated waterboarding, it cannot avoid the issue, no matter what evidence it chooses to use.

To understand why, one needs to know something about a rare and somewhat forgotten "outrageous government misconduct" defense in criminal law.

As a former federal prosecutor and a participant in some of the Department of Justice’s conventional investigative efforts in the days after 9/11, I am sure the government’s case at trial will be overwhelming. Therefore, I doubt that Mohammed’s viable defenses include a claim that he did not conspire in the 9/11 attacks.

Nor is Mohammed likely to accomplish much in arguing that evidence should be excluded because it is tainted by his treatment in U.S. custody. The prosecutors would never have pursued this case without confidence they can win solely with evidence gathered prior to Mohammed’s capture. His treatment at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere gives him no legal basis to suppress evidence gathered before he was in custody.

The prosecutors’ problem is to avoid outright dismissal of this case before trial when Mohammed asserts the "outrageous government misconduct" defense.

This defense is based on the theory that, regardless of evidence of guilt, the Constitution prohibits prosecution of a person after government agents engage in behavior that "shocks the conscience." The Supreme Court has not considered this defense for a long time, but neither has the court rejected it. The argument stems from a 1952 decision authored by Justice Felix Frankfurter. In that case, the court ruled that the state of California violated the Constitution when it arrested a drug suspect, took him to the hospital and directed a doctor to pump his stomach. The state then seized drugs the man vomited and used them to prosecute him.

This was not an illegal search under the Fourth Amendment. It was outrageous conduct that violated the guarantee of due process because, Frankfurter wrote, the government’s methods were "too close to the rack and the screw" for the Constitution to tolerate. Prosecution dismissed.

In the years since this decision, the federal appellate courts have divided over the continued viability of the "outrageous government misconduct" defense. But several have squarely said it exists, including the influential District of Columbia circuitcourt, which has said such an outright dismissal of a case should be reserved for instances of "coercion, violence or brutality to the person."

The application of this defense to the prosecution of Mohammed is obvious following repeated waterboarding, among other official acts. Given that the government used methods "close to the rack and screw," it would seem that a court could avoid dismissing the prosecution only by ruling that the defense of "outrageous government misconduct" no longer exists. The Supreme Court has never said this, the appellate courts are divided on the question, and the current Supreme Court has been anything but reluctant to address major legal questions flowing from the government’s war with al Qaeda.

Mohammed’s case would seem bound for the Supreme Court, maybe before he can be tried. On its way there, the federal courts will be forced to confront the central questions in the debate about torture. The unavoidable issues include whether what was done to Mohammed "shocks the conscience" because it was indeed, by anyone’s sensible definition, torture, and whether the government thereby forfeited its right to call him to account for his role in the murders of the victims of 9/11.

KSM and the MSM

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/111809a.html

By David Swanson
November 18, 2009

Editor’s Note: As the U.S. Justice Department finally prepares to bring the alleged 9/11 mastermind and four accomplices to trial for killing nearly 3,000 people, the American mainstream media continues to frame the issue in the most bizarre ways.

Rather than assessing issues like motive, evidence and government misconduct that has delayed this trial for six years, the MSM has obsessed over Republican complaints that a trial is being held at all, as David Swanson notes in this guest essay:

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the corporate "mainstream" media make quite a pair.

We're hearing a very "balanced" debate over whether KSM should be tried in New York City, and whether the most insane objections to that proposal are really insane or not. But what are we not hearing?

We're not hearing that trying criminals for the crime of 9-11 ought to have been what we did years ago, rather than waging wars in response to a crime.

We're not discussing the possibility that had alleged 9-11 criminals been tried years ago rather than being imprisoned and tortured together with hundreds of innocents depicted as subhuman monsters, the "war on terror" might have been replaced with simply the wars on Iraqis and Afghans and Pakistanis.
What effect might that have had on Americans' willingness to surrender their Bill of Rights? We aren't hearing about that.

Aside from a column by my friend Ray McGovern, not of course published by the corporate media, what are we hearing or seeing about KSM's motive?
Isn't motive a traditionally important element in a criminal investigation? We're told that putting KSM on trial would give him a platform for propaganda, but we're not told what that propaganda might be.

If it were really so pernicious, why not expose it and refute it? Isn't that what societies that believe in free speech do with misguided speech? Don't they defeat it with more and better speech? Or is that only when it can be done without using the word "Israel"?

Outside of progressive blogs, we're not hearing that giving a somewhat fair, if less than speedy, trial to those most likely to plead guilty or be convicted, and a less fair military trial to others, and no trial at all to others still, reveals this show of justice to be a sham.

If KSM were acquitted, President Obama would order him imprisoned outside the rule of law until he dies. If he is found guilty, as everyone universally expects, he may be officially murdered by the United States, motivating others to take up arms against a nation that wages and funds illegal wars, imprisons people without charge, tortures, kidnaps, renditions, and executes.

If the justice system is bent to ensure that KSM is convicted or permitted little opportunity to speak, will that bending have any permanent repercussions for our justice system? Or, to move in the other direction, having determined that "military justice" is not good enough for alleged mass murders, must we continue to pretend that it is good enough for members of the military?

Can we not admit everyone into a single and improved justice system? We're not hearing that discussion.

An improved justice system would require the admission into court of videos of all confessions and interrogations. This would not include admissions made to a journalist prior to imprisonment, as in the case of KSM and Al Jazeera, but would include all interrogations since that time.

And in KSM's case it might include video of the "interrogation" of his children. Years ago, allegations were made that the United States had tortured his children, including in little-heard-of manners, such as locking a child in a box with a supposedly deadly insect.

More recently, secret memos emerged showing the United States to have authorized just those techniques. If this were a story about missing sex tapes, the media would be all over it. A story about the possible torture of children is far less interesting.

It might open up difficult questions, such as whether someone who has been endlessly tortured, and whose children may have been tortured, can -- while still in the custody of the torturers -- give an un-coerced confession.

Questions might even have to be asked about leniency in sentencing for someone who has already served time and been horribly tortured.

If this were a story about a singer or actor or athlete, we'd see investigations of the time KSM spent attending college in North Carolina. Why didn't the Americans he lived among persuade him of how horrible it would be to murder people in this country?

Our media pundits are completely incapable of asking such a question without either blaming KSM's American acquaintances for his crimes or declaring KSM to be an inscrutable monster whose thinking is of absolutely no interest.

Other questions might be asked as well, such as why Dick Cheney and his supporters never talk about the two memos anymore. Remember the two memos that Cheney claimed would show that the torture of KSM and others revealed important information that saved lives.

The memos are now public and show nothing of the sort.

Nor was torture needed in order to prosecute KSM himself. In fact, as Marcy Wheeler has pointed out, the ability of the government to prosecute him without using evidence obtained through torture demonstrates that torture was not needed for that purpose.

But why are we not talking about the two purposes torture actually serves? We know it does not produce useful information, but we also know that it produces desired lies, such as agreement to false rationales for war. And we know that it scares people, both people who fear they might be tortured and people who fear the wild beasts depicted as reachable only through torture.

As Glenn Greenwald has touched on, behaving as though terrorized, irrationally unable to believe an alleged terrorist can be held in a cell and tried in a court, is to give in to the terrorism. Worse, it is to advance it.

More Americans are more terrorized following TV discussions of KSM's possible prosecution than were beforehand, because the voices on the TV promote the terror rather than the prosecution.

We are hearing about the need to avoid evidence obtained through torture. But at the same time we are hearing absolutely nothing about the need to prosecute the torturers and the creators of the torture program, at least one of whom, John Yoo, is given a platform as one of the disinterested media commentators in the MSM.

This failure is an ideal way to create more KSMs. Why don't we talk about it?

Statement Of September 11th Advocates Regarding Reaction To AG Eric Holder's Announcement On Moving 9/11 Trials To NYC

For Immediate Release
11/19/2009

We are encouraged by Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that the trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four additional detainees, Walid Muhammed Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsawi, would be moved to our Federal Court system in New York City.

Unfortunately, this has evoked a knee-jerk reaction that has been brought to an almost feverish pitch by the media pundits and the politicians. This response seems to be agenda driven rhetoric unsupported by facts.

Fear mongering is a tactic that is often used by those in power to hide wrongdoing. Perhaps those responsible for ordering torture have something to hide. Could those people be creating this frenzy?

With the apparent desire to try these suspects in the military commission system, one would think that the success rate of prosecutions would be higher than that of the Federal Courts', but that is not the case. To date, the military commissions system has had a very low success rate and has only brought one 9/11 terrorist case to completion. On the other hand, the American Justice System has been used to try terrorists 214 times since September 2001, with a success rate of 91% - 195 people were convicted.

The one 9/11 related case that was brought to completion in the military commissions system, U.S. v. Hamdan (Bin Laden's driver), brought Hamdan only a 66 month sentence. He was sent back to Yemen in January 2009. Where was the outrage then?

In fact, having accused September 11th alleged terrorists on American soil, in Federal Court, is not precedent setting. The alleged 20th hijacker, Zacharias Moussaoui, was held in a Virginia detention center and was later sentenced in Federal Court, also located in Virginia. Where was the outcry at that time?

During the course of that hearing, we fortunately did not experience a terrorist incident. Admittedly, an attempted attack could occur whether we try these suspects in America or Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Does that mean we should not try them at all?

It should also be noted that the military commissions system allows for secret proceedings where tainted evidence and hearsay could be used. Thus, any resulting verdict could lack credibility. For those who fear an attack because trials are being held on American soil, isn't it just as likely that a verdict lacking credibility could provoke an attack?

Additionally, we believe the decision to try these men in our Federal Courts is less about giving detainees the same privileges as American citizens and more about America being a nation that conducts itself according to the rule of law. As a matter of practicality, in order to protect our citizens and soldiers around the world, it is best that we not devolve into barbarians seeking revenge. Retaliation then becomes an even greater risk.

It is time that we actually look at the facts and stop reacting from a place of fear.

###

Patty Casazza
Monica Gabrielle
Mindy Kleinberg
Lorie Van Auken

New Yorkers Resist 9/11 Scare Tactics

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/112109a.html

By Michael Winship
November 21, 2009

Editor’s Note: Many Americans view New Yorkers as abrasive and arrogant (The Big Apple, the New York Yankees, “if you can make it here…”, etc.) but there is also a grudging admiration for the city’s toughness and grit. NYC is not a place for wimps and worriers.

Which is why New Yorkers seem pretty nonchalant about Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to try five 9/11 defendants in Manhattan just blocks from Ground Zero, while Americans elsewhere seem more susceptible to Republican fear-mongering, as Michael Winship notes in this guest essay:

If you want to royally tick off New Yorkers, try telling us what to do.

That's probably why the police stopped trying to enforce the jaywalking laws here years ago (as opposed to Washington, DC, where I once got one too many tickets and was sent to pedestrian school).

And that's why in the weeks after 9/11, my favorite sign was the one that appeared in the windows of Italian-American neighborhoods near where I live downtown. In bright red, white and blue, it read: "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. You got a problem with that?"

So imagine how pleased many of us were when told by conservatives - most of them from out-of-town -- that we should be very afraid that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and some of his Al Qaeda henchmen will be put on trial here in New York City, just blocks from the scene of their horrific crime, the World Trade Center.

My own unscientific survey indicates that most of us who live not far from Ground Zero and who were here on 9/11 see it as an appropriate and just venue and aren't afraid that the trial will result in terrorist retribution.

And if for some reason it should, we will stand up in righteous, rational indignation, the way we New Yorkers do on an almost daily basis, whether the source of vexation is slight or extreme.

I immediately thought of the moment in Casablanca, when the supercilious Nazi, Major Strasser, asks Humphrey Bogart if he's one of those who can't imagine Germans occupying New York. Bogart replies, "There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn't advise you to try to invade."
The response of Arizona Republican Congressman John Shadegg was especially offensive.

After noting that Mayor Mike Bloomberg had said that New Yorkers are tough and could handle the trial and its attendant commotion, Rep. Shadegg declared on the floor of the House, "Well, Mayor, how are you going to feel when it's your daughter that's kidnapped at school by a terrorist? How are you going to feel when it's some clerk -- some innocent clerk of the court -- whose daughter or son is kidnapped? Or the judge's wife? Or the jailer's little brother or little sister?"

Rep. Shadegg wound up apologizing, although he insisted the point survived his insensitivity - "I think it is important to note that this decision involves potential risk to innocent people," he said.

But even Rupert Murdoch's right-wing New York Post took offense, describing Shadegg's remarks as "the outrageously shameless use of Bloomberg's children as debating points."

Two local politicians who should know better did speak out in opposition to a federal trial here in Manhattan, but to a large degree their motives can be perceived as mercenary. Both men are or may be running for statewide office, and polling outside the city indicates that when it comes to a civilian trial, a sizable majority has bought into the fear-mongering.

Former Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who became such a hero in New York as he walked the rubble-strewn streets on 9/11, and who has been bandied about the media as a potential candidate for governor or the US Senate, fell into conservative lockstep and told CBS News, "There is no reason to try them in a civilian court. Others are going to be tried in the military tribunal. And the reality is we've never done this before. And this is something that was pushed very, very hard by the left wing for President Obama to do."

Which is odd, because back in 2006, when a civilian jury sentenced 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui to life without parole, Giuliani told Chris Matthews on MSNBC's "Hardball" that while he would have preferred the death penalty, the verdict "does show that we have a legal system, that we follow it, that we respect it. And it is exactly what is missing in the parts of the world or a lot of the parts of the world that are breeding terrorism... it does say something pretty remarkable about us, doesn't it?"

What's more, when blind sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahmanm, the architect of the first Trade Center bombing in 1993, was convicted in New York federal court, Giuliani said, "It does demonstrate that we can give people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we say we are. We are a nation of law... I think he's going to be a symbol of American justice."

More baffling was New York's Democratic Governor David Paterson, who told The New York Times, "This is not a decision I would have made... We still have been unable to rebuild that site, and having those terrorists tried so close to the attack is going to be an encumbrance on all New Yorkers."

But the governor's popularity is so low and election chances next year so slim he is desperate for the slightest grit of traction. A Siena College poll this week had 69% saying they would vote for someone else. At this point, he probably would allow himself to be pulled between two farm tractors if he thought it might help him carry upstate.

Paterson's position also seemed to puzzle U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder - a New Yorker, by the way - who last week announced the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow conspirator here in the city. When told of Paterson's comments, he said to the New York Daily News, "It's a little inconsistent with what he told me last week."

Attorney General Holder, in this instance at least, has been the consistent one, unwavering over the rightness of his decision while admitting that it was a "tough call, and reasonable people can disagree with my conclusion."

On Wednesday he handled four hours of often harshly critical questioning from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and then met with families of 9/11 victims. He countered the opposition's main objections.

"We know that we can prosecute terrorists in our federal courts safely and securely because we have been doing it for years," Holder said, and the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) "establishes strict rules for the use of classified information at trial."

As for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - often identified simply as KSM -- and his track record of rabid histrionics, Holder said that the terrorist "will have no more of a platform to spew his hateful ideology in federal court than he would have in military commissions...

"Judges in federal court have firm control over the conduct of defendants and other participants in their courtrooms, and when the 9/11 conspirators are brought to trial, I have every confidence that the presiding judge will ensure appropriate decorum.

“And if KSM makes the same statements he made in his military commission proceedings, I have every confidence the nation and the world will see him for the coward he is. I'm not scared of what KSM will have to say at trial -- and no one else needs to be either."

Which seems right to me and my friends who stood on our neighborhood streets and watched those towers burn and fall. You got a problem with that?

Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program “Bill Moyers Journal,” which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at www.pbs.org/moyers.

Top US House Democrat questions 9/11 criminal trials

http://www.reuters.com/article/lates.../idUSN20247124

WASHINGTON, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, Representative Ike Skelton, cast doubt on Friday about the Obama administration's decision to try the Sept. 11, 2001, conspirators in a U.S. criminal court.

Skelton, a fellow Democrat of President Barack Obama, asked U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates to brief the committee about the decision to use the criminal courts instead of the revamped military commissions.

"As a former prosecutor, I am not yet convinced that the right decision was made in these cases, nor that the presumption in favor of federal criminal trials over military tribunals for these detainees should continue," Skelton said in a letter to the two officials.

Holder this week defended his decision to move the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other alleged conspirators to a federal criminal court in New York from military commissions.

It has been mostly Republicans who have been critical of Holder's decision, questioning whether it will be easier to get a conviction in a criminal court rather than a military one because some of the evidence was obtained through coercive interrogations and probably cannot be used.

Holder has said he is aware of evidence that has not been made public that will help convict the five accused men. He expressed confidence that the trials would be successful.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said they would review Skelton's letter. A Defense Department spokesman declined comment.

Ashcroft opposed to civilian 9/11 trials

http://www.kansas.com/225/story/1065473.html

By DAVID TWIDDY
Associated Press

OVERLAND PARK _ Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who on Friday endorsed fellow Republican Todd Tiahrt's U.S. Senate campaign, condemned the Obama administration for moving the trial of Sept. 11 terrorism suspects to civilian rather than military court.

Ashcroft, who served as attorney general at the time of the attacks, said the trials could endanger the public and give anti-U.S. elements a public stage to voice their rhetoric.

He also said prosecutors will have to publicly disclose evidence, which could compromise efforts to monitor and break up future attacks.

"If your top priority is the liberty and life of American citizens and the security of their lives and liberty, then this decision is less than optimal," he told reporters before a fundraiser for Tiahrt. "I believe we are still in a very significant war on terror. The administration doesn't appear to believe that we are in a war on terror."

Attorney General Eric Holder decided last week to send professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged henchmen from a detention center at Guantanamo Bay to New York to face a civilian federal trial instead of facing a military tribunal.

He and President Obama have defended the decision, saying prosecutors have enough evidence to find the men guilty and that the nation's intelligence secrets can be protected in a public trial. Holder also told lawmakers judges can prevent defendants from grandstanding and being disruptive during their trials.

Tiahrt, a congressman, said he filed legislation this week seeking a House vote on whether to keep the trials under military jurisdiction.

Tiahrt, who has represented the 4th District of south-central Kansas since 1995, is locked in a tough race for the Republican Senate nomination with fellow Rep. Jerry Moran, who has represented the 1st District of western and central Kansas since 1997.

Moran, who has been endorsed by such GOP luminaries as Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, also opposes moving the terrorism suspects from Cuba to New York, said campaign manager Aaron Trost.

Fox News Poll: 52 Percent Think 9/11 Trial Should be in Military Tribunal

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009...tary-tribunal/

by Dana Blanton

A slim majority of Americans think five accused Sept. 11 plotters should be tried by a military tribunal rather than a civilian court -- and nearly half are concerned that their federal trial will "turn into a circus," a Fox News poll finds.

As Attorney General Eric Holder moves forward with his decision to try accused Sept. 11 terrorists in a U.S. civilian court, a slim majority of the public thinks the detainees should be tried by a military tribunal instead. Half of Americans are very concerned key evidence will be thrown out on a technicality, and roughly equal numbers think the government's interrogation techniques will be the focus of the trials as think the terrorist attacks will be.

The latest Fox News national poll finds 52 percent of Americans think the appropriate place to try the five detainees is in a military tribunal, while 40 percent think they should be tried in the U.S. system. Democrats are more likely to favor having the trial in a U.S. court (55-37 percent). For Republicans, it's just the opposite, as a majority thinks a tribunal is the right way to go (64 percent tribunal/29 percent court). Among independents, 60 percent say a tribunal and 33 percent U.S. court.

Click here to see the poll.

When the question is framed as Attorney General Holder's decision to transfer the detainees to New York City to stand trial in a civilian court, more voters say it was a bad idea than a good idea by 49-42 percent. Republicans (60 percent) and independents (60 percent) are much more likely than Democrats (32 percent) to view this action as a bad idea.

A 28 percent minority sees political motives behind Holder's decision and believes the Obama administration wants the trial to be held in U.S. court to put the Bush administration's anti-terrorism policies and the practices of the CIA on trial. The largest number though -- 50 percent -- think the administration truly believes the U.S. trial is better than the military tribunal.

Americans are fairly evenly divided on whether the Sept. 11 detainees can get a fair trial in New York City -- 46 percent say yes and 43 percent no. And while 41 percent say they could truly be an impartial juror at the trial of an accused terrorist, over half -- 54 percent -- say they couldn't.

Several issues have been raised surrounding the trials being held in the civilian court system. The largest concern for Americans is that key evidence in the trial will be thrown out on a technicality (50 percent are very concerned). Related to that, many are "very concerned" that for some reason, one or more of the defendants could be set free (48 percent) and secrets about how the government protects the country will be disclosed (45 percent).

There is also concern that the trial will "turn into a circus" (48 percent very concerned) and New York City will become a target (43 percent very concerned).

Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for Fox News from Nov. 17 to Nov. 18. For the total sample, the poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Almost all Americans -- 78 percent -- view the Sept. 11 attacks as an "act of terrorism" rather than a "violent crime" (6 percent). A month after the attacks the U.S. military took action in Afghanistan. All in all, 33 percent of Americans think the U.S. and its allies are winning the war against terrorism, down from 41 percent in 2006 and a high of 67 percent in the month after the military action in Afghanistan began (November 2001).

President Obama is currently considering next steps in Afghanistan, including the option of sending additional U.S. troops as requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. The American public remains divided on this issue: 42 percent support sending more troops and 45 percent oppose it. Last month, 46 percent of Americans supported and 46 percent opposed sending additional troops (October 2009).

Report: Fearing death penalty, Berlin to send team to 9-11 trial

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/ne...-to-9-11-trial

Europe News
Nov 21, 2009, 10:32 GMT

Berlin - The German government is to send observers to New York to ensure that evidence it provided in the case against five men accused of masterminding the September 11, 2001 attacks does not lead to them receiving the death penalty, news magazine Der Spiegel reported Saturday.

On November 13, the US Justice Department announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men would be tried in a federal court - and that the government was seeking the death penalty should they be convicted.

Members of the al-Qaeda cell including Mohamed Atta that led the suicide attacks on New York and Washington were based in the northern German city of Hamburg in the period leading up to the event.

Germany, which does not have a death penalty, has provided items of evidence for the trial on the condition that a possible death sentence would not be based on their materials.

'In this case we will observe very closely that the given assurances (by the US government) are kept,' Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger said.

However, it was not clear how a distinction would, or could, be drawn between German and other evidence leading to a conviction and death penalty.

In the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen serving a life sentence in the US for his failed part in the September 11 attacks, German-provided evidence was only admitted in the first phase of the trial, and not in the preparation of the sentencing.

The defence lawyer for Sheikh Mohammed's co-accused Ramzi Binalshibh said that a conviction of his client would 'scarcely be possible without evidence from Germany.'

A trial based on the Moussaoui example, where German evidence was not admitted in the sentencing phase was an 'artificial distinction, which does not exist in reality,' Speigel quoted Thomas Durkin as saying.

Our view on prosecuting terror suspects: Unsettling choice for 9/11 trial has one big plus
Defendants are getting more than they deserve, but it won’t likely help them.

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/...-big-plus.html

11/21/2009

For eight years now, the government has struggled unsuccessfully for a perfect way to try and punish terrorists — a task for which neither the civilian courts nor the military justice system was designed. So it's hardly a surprise that the decision to try accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants in federal court in New York — and five other terror suspects before military commissions — produced a week of acrimonious debate. That was inevitable. The good news, perhaps too little noted, is that years of impotent wrangling are over. The terrorists accused of the 2001 atrocities will be tried and, barring some spectacular failure, suitably punished.

To be sure, the decision to split jurisdiction is discomforting, particularly on the civilian side. Terrorists caught abroad after plotting acts of war are not inherently entitled to all the rights accorded U.S. citizens, and treating them as such is unsettling, both on a gut level and as precedent. Attorney General Eric Holder stumbled repeatedly when pressed at a hearing Wednesday by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on whether Osama bin Laden, if captured, would have to be read Miranda rights, provided a lawyer and tried in a court. "That all depends," Holder said at one point. A convincing "no" would have been better.

The military commissions, meanwhile, will be messy in other ways. They've been overhauled twice for constitutional reasons, and even with protections built in to protect intelligence and such, the government is not comfortable trying all the prisoners it holds before them, or anywhere else.

As we said, it's all messy and uncomfortable. But some of the angst over Holder's decision is also overdone, particularly the hand-wringing from critics who seem to think we should cower in fear at the prospect of publicly trying the self-described 9/11 ringleader. Previous experience suggests advantages.

The accused plotters will be tried within blocks of the World Trade Center by a jury of New Yorkers. That is totally appropriate.

Yes, there is a prospect of endless legal motions for changes of venue or excluding coerced evidence. There's slight potential to reveal classified information. The jurors and judge will have to be guarded. And there will surely be rounds of appeals.

But none of that is new. And why would anyone fear the storyline?

Would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid, 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and Ramzi Yousef, the perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, are all in prison after federal trials that made them look like exactly what they are: soulless killers. Should Mohammed try to exploit the legal protections of the system he claims to despise, he'll look like a fool.

Nor should anyone fear that he will walk. Holder says he has an airtight case, and it's hard to believe the Justice Department would go forward if it didn't. If by some far-fetched chance Mohammed were acquitted, he could be tried on other charges or held as an enemy combatant.

As for Mohammed using the trial to inspire hatred, he might well try. But among civilized people, his rantings are no match for the prosecution's story of 3,000 innocent people who woke up one clear September morning, went to work or boarded planes and were sent to horrible deaths by his hand.

Ideally, Congress would have devised a third way — a national security court to prosecute terrorism cases that don't fit in military or federal court. Former federal judge and attorney general Michael Mukasey has been suggesting that since 2007.

Instead we're left with two systems, both valuable, each somewhat wanting. Holder said he will use both. That's what he's got.

It's fair to ask whether any other country would go through so much angst, so many debates, so much soul-searching to put on trial its most heinous enemies. But in doing so and then trying the accused mastermind of 9/11 in open court, America leaves no doubt that above all, it values the rule of law.

The Washington Post’s Dueling 9/11-Trial Op-eds, Condensed

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2009/11...dueling_9.html

11/20/2009

Today the Washington Post runs two opposing op-eds on the topic of whether Eric Holder is making a wise decision in bringing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to New York to stand trial. In the interest of your precious time and energy, we've boiled the arguments of columnist Charles Krauthammer and former Bush administration Justice Department officials Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith into their five most salient points. Memorize them for when the argument inevitably breaks out during Thanksgiving dinner!

Charles Krauthammer (not a fan of the decision):

• KSM has "been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable."
• Holder's certainty that KSM will be convicted makes the trial a farce.
• A conviction was guaranteed in a military tribunal.
• The trial will be a security nightmare — both in terms of protecting the city and the exposure of intelligence secrets.
• It creates an incentive for killing Americans on American soil, by prosecuting such acts in a federal court, as opposed to a military tribunal.

Jim Comey and Jack Goldsmith (they like it):

• New York won't be any more of a target for terrorists than it already is.
• Unlike federal courts, military commissions are fraught with legal uncertainty.
• Federal courts were used to put away "dozens of terrorists," many for life, under the Bush administration.
• Defendants won't be able to make an argument about their legal rights being infringed upon.
• "The potential procedural advantages of military commission trials are relatively unimportant with obviously guilty defendants such as Mohammed."

Lawyer: 9/11 defendants want platform for views

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091122/...ial_defendants

By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer Karen Matthews, Associated Press Writer – 47 mins ago

NEW YORK – The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and why they did it."

The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month that Ali and four other men accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. will face a civilian federal trial just blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, is a nephew of professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Mohammed, Ali and the others will explain "their assessment of American foreign policy," Fenstermaker said.

"Their assessment is negative," he said.

Fenstermaker met with Ali last week at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He has not spoken with the others but said the men have discussed the trial among themselves.

Fenstermaker was first quoted in The New York Times in Sunday's editions.

Critics of Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the men in a New York City civilian courthouse have warned that the trial would provide the defendants with a propaganda platform.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said Sunday that while the men may attempt to use the trial to express their views, "we have full confidence in the ability of the courts and in particular the federal judge who may preside over the trial to ensure that the proceeding is conducted appropriately and with minimal disruption, as federal courts have done in the past."

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Holder for hours about his decision to send the five 9/11 suspects to New York for trial.

Critics of Holder's decision — mostly Republicans — argued the trial will give Mohammed and his co-defendants a world stage to spout hateful rhetoric. Holder said such concerns are misplaced, and any pronouncements by the suspects would only make them look worse.

"I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is," Holder told the committee. "I'm not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial — and no one else needs to be, either."

The attorney general said he does not believe holding the trial in New York — at a federal courthouse that has seen a number of high-profile terrorism trials in recent decades — will increase the risk of terror attacks there.

If there is a God, please let them say, "we did what the Americans wanted us to..."

Brown: Giuliani 'wants to keep 9/11 alive'

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politi...e.html?showall

11/22/2009

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) ripped Rudy Giuliani Sunday, saying that the former New York City mayor "wants to keep 9/11 alive" in order to further his political ambitions.

Speaking on TV One's "Washington Watch," Brown said Giuliani plans to "quietly" announce a bid for the Senate soon and could use the terrorist attacks eight years ago as a key issue in his campaign.

Brown also took Giuliani to task for his disapproval of the Obama administration's decision to move supposed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial to New York.

"The big difference is that Rudy Giuliani is talking about Barack Obama rather than George Bush," Brown said.

"This is the right way to do it," Brown said of the civilian trial. "He’ll get a fair trial. Let him go in front of the American legal system, and I think justice will be done."

Germans weasel in on 9/11 trial

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/interna...LzHomP3ehgkHpO

By ADAM NICHOLS
Last Updated: 10:50 AM, November 22, 2009

Fearing for the lives of the 9/11 fiends, the German government will send a team of observers to the New York terror trials to make sure evidence by its agents doesn't lead to the death penalty.

Germany, which bans the death penalty, will have a team at the trial of admitted atrocity mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed (right) and four of his al Qaeda henchmen. The evidence gathered by German investigators could lead to death sentences.

In fact, it's unlikely US prosecutors have any chance of convicting the 9/11 monsters without the Germans' proof, an attorney for one of the suspects said yesterday.

A conviction "would scarcely be possible without evidence from Germany," the lawyer, who represents Ramzi Binalshibh, told the German broadcast network Deutsche Welle. The network did not identify the lawyer.

Three of the four pilots who carried out the 9/11 attacks had formed a cell while living in Hamburg, Germany.

German investigators handed over evidence for the trial on the condition that it could not be used to support a death sentence -- which the US government has said it intends to seek if the five are found guilty.

President Obama last week said that he expects Mohammed will be put to death.

But Germany's Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger told Deutsche Welle, "In this case, we will observe very closely that the given assurances are kept."

It's unclear how evidence gathered in Germany could be distinguished from that gathered elsewhere.

No trial date has been set for the five terror thugs, who are to be shipped from Guantanamo Bay to New York.

Poll finds broad support among New Yorkers for death penalty in Khalid Shaikh Mohammed terror case

http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/...rror_case.html

BY Robert Johnson and David Saltonstall
daily news writers
Sunday, November 22nd 2009, 4:00 AM

An overwhelming majority of New Yorkers believe the terrorist thugs who planned the 9/11 attacks should and will be sentenced to death - and two-thirds of city residents say they'd be unafraid to serve on the jury.

An exclusive Daily News/Marist poll found that 77% of New Yorkers agree with President Obama that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four cowardly cohorts will be found guilty in a Manhattan federal courtroom.

"If I'm on that jury, there's no doubt they get a conviction - no doubt," said Larry Amandola, 48, an electrician from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and one of a dozen regular New Yorkers interviewed separately by The News. "I had a few friends who died on Sept. 11 and I worked [at Ground Zero] immediately after. The people that suffered through this have a right to judge them."

The poll of 811 city residents, conducted Wednesday and Thursday by The Marist College Institute for Public Opinion for The News, did find New Yorkers more evenly split on some underlying policy issues.

For instance, 47% of New Yorkers said they agreed with Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the 9/11 plotters in a civilian court here rather than a military court. Nearly as many - 41% - disagreed with Holder, and 12% said they were unsure. The poll's margin of error was 3.5 percentage points.

Critics - chief among them former Mayor Rudy Giuliani - have argued that a civilian court trial is needlessly risky and expensive for the city and grants the accused too many rights.

But with the decision made, most New Yorkers seem eager to send their own message to the thugs who brought down the Twin Towers:

It's payback time.

"Those guys don't stand a chance," said Henry Romer, 51, a construction manager in midtown Manhattan. "There's no question they'll get the death penalty here."

"New York will get it done, because the families of the people that died won't let them do anything else," added Calvin Seibert, 51, an artist who lives in Chelsea. "It's just what you have to do. We can't let them down."

The poll found some apprehension about an Al Qaeda trial here. Fifty-two percent said they were concerned it will increase the city's risk of a terror attack, while 45% said they were not worried.

"This is going to bring more problems and more terrorists and more threats," said Cecilio Rodriguez, 30, an engineer from Flatbush.

Despite those fears, a solid 69% expressed confidence that a city jury would return the unanimous verdict required to sentence the accused terrorists to death.

And New Yorkers are equally ready to stand up and be counted: More than two-thirds said they would not be afraid to serve as a juror in the case.

"I'd be eager to sit on the jury and hear the whole story, to see history happen," said Louisa Alsen, 19, a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology.

An even larger 73% of those polled said ringleader Mohammed should be put to death for his crimes if convicted, and 67% said his four co-defendants should also pay the ultimate price.

And though a minority still doubt a jury in left-leaning New York would ever return a sentence of death, there is overwhelming agreement that justice would be served - one way or another.

"I don't think they're gonna get the death penalty in New York, and that's okay," said William Nieves, 27, a bakery driver from Hell's Kitchen. "They should serve life sentences because it's a worse punishment ...[Jail] will be worse than Hell. Guards, prisoners, everyone will be after them."

Steven Stegman, 67, an attorney who worked on Liberty Street when the towers came down, has no doubt New Yorkers will rise to the task of delivering justice.

"I would love to see them convicted in New York," Stegman said. "It's poetic justice ...New York can do this."

Brown: Giuliani 'wants to keep 9/11 alive'

http://www.politico.com/blogs/politi...e.html?showall

11/22/2009

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) ripped Rudy Giuliani Sunday, saying that the former New York City mayor "wants to keep 9/11 alive" in order to further his political ambitions.

Speaking on TV One's "Washington Watch," Brown said Giuliani plans to "quietly" announce a bid for the Senate soon and could use the terrorist attacks eight years ago as a key issue in his campaign.

Brown also took Giuliani to task for his disapproval of the Obama administration's decision to move supposed mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's trial to New York.

"The big difference is that Rudy Giuliani is talking about Barack Obama rather than George Bush," Brown said.

"This is the right way to do it," Brown said of the civilian trial. "He’ll get a fair trial. Let him go in front of the American legal system, and I think justice will be done."

Lawyer: 9/11 defendants want platform for views

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091122/...ial_defendants

By KAREN MATTHEWS, Associated Press Writer Karen Matthews, Associated Press Writer – Sun Nov 22, 5:28 pm ET

NEW YORK – The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and why they did it."

The U.S. Justice Department announced earlier this month that Ali and four other men accused of murdering nearly 3,000 people in the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. will face a civilian federal trial just blocks from the site of the destroyed World Trade Center.

Ali, also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, is a nephew of professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Mohammed, Ali and the others will explain "their assessment of American foreign policy," Fenstermaker said.

"Their assessment is negative," he said.

Fenstermaker met with Ali last week at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He has not spoken with the others but said the men have discussed the trial among themselves.

Fenstermaker was first quoted in The New York Times in Sunday's editions.

Critics of Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try the men in a New York City civilian courthouse have warned that the trial would provide the defendants with a propaganda platform.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said Sunday that while the men may attempt to use the trial to express their views, "we have full confidence in the ability of the courts and in particular the federal judge who may preside over the trial to ensure that the proceeding is conducted appropriately and with minimal disruption, as federal courts have done in the past."

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Holder for hours about his decision to send the five 9/11 suspects to New York for trial.

Critics of Holder's decision — mostly Republicans — argued the trial will give Mohammed and his co-defendants a world stage to spout hateful rhetoric. Holder said such concerns are misplaced, and any pronouncements by the suspects would only make them look worse.

"I have every confidence that the nation and the world will see him for the coward that he is," Holder told the committee. "I'm not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial — and no one else needs to be, either."

The attorney general said he does not believe holding the trial in New York — at a federal courthouse that has seen a number of high-profile terrorism trials in recent decades — will increase the risk of terror attacks there.