U.S. Attorney General Goes to N.Y. for Meetings on 9/11 Trials

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/ny...0security.html

By AL BAKER
Published: December 9, 2009

Amid significant concern about security arrangements for the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. made an unannounced visit on Wednesday to federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials in New York.

Mr. Holder went to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the United States attorney’s office and the adjacent federal court in Lower Manhattan, where Mr. Mohammed, who is accused of being the mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other 9/11 detainees will be tried, just blocks from where the World Trade Center once stood.

He met with security officials, including Raymond W. Kelly, the city’s police commissioner, and Joseph M. Demarest Jr., the assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s New York office, “to discuss coordination, cooperation and security for the potential upcoming trials of the 9/11 terrorists,†said Special Agent Richard Kolko, an F.B.I. spokesman in New York.

Mr. Holder’s visit, and the range of people he huddled with, reflected the government’s seriousness in approaching the as-yet-unscheduled trials and their potential to wreak havoc on a city battered by terrorism plots, successful and not.

Once the Justice Department announced on Nov. 13 that it was bringing its case to Manhattan, the Police Department began formulating plans for “security around the venue itself, and protection of the city,†including its bridges, transit system and landmarks, said Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman.

William T. Morris, a deputy chief in the department’s Criminal Justice Bureau, is collecting information for Mr. Kelly from sectors like the Intelligence Division and the Counterterrorism Bureau, which oversees the more than 100 detectives assigned to work with the F.B.I. on the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

There will be the usual physical security elements, including roadway checkpoints, patrol officers in the streets and snipers on rooftops. There will be unseen elements, too: plainclothes officers mingling with crowds. Protection for the prosecutors, witnesses and the judge will also be factored in, officials said.

While the entire operation will be similar to the deployment for a New Year’s Eve celebration, the difference this time is it will have to be sustained over months or more, officials said.

Mr. Kelly has told the Justice Department that the costs for security operations, including paying officers’ overtime, are expected to exceed the initial minimum estimate of $75 million.

When Senator Charles S. Schumer asked Mr. Holder in a Nov. 18 hearing in Washington if he would recommend that the president include money in the federal budget for the city’s extra security costs, the attorney general said, “New York should not bear the burden alone.â€

On Wednesday, Mr. Holder also met with officials from the federal Bureau of Prisons, the United States Marshals Service and federal prosecutors from Virginia, where Zacarias Moussaoui was sentenced to life in prison in 2006 for his role in the Qaeda conspiracy.

“He was in New York to meet with the prosecution team working on the 9/11 case,†Matthew A. Miller, a spokesman for Mr. Holder, said after the meetings. “There is broad agreement that we can safely and securely hold these trials.â€