9-11 Mastermind to be Brought to New York to Face Trial

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World

Friday, 13 November 2009 13:06

The man accused of being the mastermind behind the September 11 terror attacks is to finally face trial in New York, the U.S. Attorney General said today. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other four suspects accused of the plot will be moved from Guantanamo Bay within weeks.

U.S. President Barack Obama said they will face 'exacting' justice.

Attorney General Eric Holder has announced the decision this afternoon. He told reporters he expects prosecutors to seek the death penalty.

Any trial of the men accused of plotting the attacks on U.S. soil will be seen as hugely symbolic in America, still feeling the painful after-effects more than eight years on.

The fact that the trials are due to be set in New York, just a few blocks from where nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks,  will only heighten the emotion surrounding the case.

The actual transfer of the detainees from Guantanamo to New York isn't expected to happen for many more weeks because formal charges have not been filed against most of them.

Bringing such notorious suspects to U.S. soil to face trial is also a key step in President Barack Obama's plan to close Guantanamo.

Mr Obama initially planned to close the detention centre by January 22, but the administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline.

The New York case may also force the court system to finally confront allegations of torture used on terror suspects while in CIA custody.

The most severe method - waterboarding, or simulated drowning - was used on Mohammed 183 times in 2003, before the practice was banned.

Holder will also announce that a major suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, will face justice before a military commission.

He is to name a handful of other detainees who will be brought before such a commission.

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It is not clear where such a commission might be held, but a military brig in South Carolina has been high on the list of considered sites.

The attorney general has decided the case of the five September 11 suspects should be handled by prosecutors working in the Southern District of New York.

There a number of major terrorism trials in recent decades have been held at a courthouse in lower Manhattan, just blocks from where the World Trade Center towers once stood.

Holder had been considering other possible trial locations, including Virginia, Washington and a different courthouse in New York City.

Those districts could all end up conducting trials of other Guantanamo detainees sent to federal court later on.

The attorney general's decision in these cases comes just before a Monday deadline for the government to decide how to proceed against 10 detainees facing military commissions.

In the military system, the five September 11 suspects had faced the death penalty. The Justice Department has not yet said if it will seek capital punishment once the men are in the federal system.

The administration has already sent one Guantanamo detainee, Ahmed Ghailani, to New York to face trial, but chose not to seek death in that case.

At the last major trial of Al Qaeda suspects held at that courthouse in 2001, prosecutors did seek death for some of the defendants.

Mohammed already has an outstanding terror indictment against him in New York, for an unsuccessful plot called 'Bojinka' to simultaneously take down multiple airliners over the Pacific Ocean in the 1990s.

Some members of Congress have fought any effort to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial in the United States.

They claim it would be too dangerous for nearby civilians.

The emotion and tension surrounding such a trial - especially if it were held in New York - would command national attention.

But the Obama administration has defended plans to hold the trials.

Officials have hit back by saying many terrorists have been safely tried, convicted, and imprisoned in the United States - including the 1993 World Trade Center bomber, Ramzi Yousef.


Mohammed and the four others - Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali - are accused of orchestrating the attacks that killed 2,973 people on September 11, 2001.

Mohammed told interrogators that he was the mastermind of the attacks.

He allegedly proposed the concept to Osama bin Laden as early as 1996, obtained funding for the attacks from bin Laden, oversaw the operation and trained the hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The charges against the others are:

Bin Attash, a Yemeni, allegedly ran an al-Qaida training camp in Logar, Afghanistan, where two of the 19 hijackers were trained. Bin Attash is believed to have been bin Laden's bodyguard. Authorities say bin Laden selected him as a hijacker, but he was prevented from participating when he was briefly detained in Yemen in early 2001.

Binalshibh, a Yemeni, allegedly helped find flight schools for the hijackers, helped them enter the United States and assisted with financing the operation. He allegedly was selected to be a hijacker and made a "martyr video" in preparation for the operation, but was unable to get a U.S. visa. He also is believed to be a lead operative for a foiled plot to crash aircraft into London's Heathrow Airport.

Ali allegedly helped nine of the hijackers travel to the United States and sent them $120,000 for expenses and flight training. He is believed to have served as a key lieutenant to Mohammed in Pakistan. He was born in Pakistan and raised in Kuwait.

Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, a Saudi, allegedly helped the hijackers with money, western clothing, traveler's checks and credit cards. Al-Hawsawi testified in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, saying he had seen Moussaoui at an al-Qaida guesthouse in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in early 2001, but was never introduced to him or conducted operations with him.

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