The alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and four suspected co-plotters will be tried in a civilian court blocks from where al-Qaeda hijackers crashed two airliners into the World Trade Center, the US government announced.
Attorney General Eric Holder said on Friday that prosecutors would seek the death penalty against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspects who are held at Guantanamo Bay, but will be moved to a New York prison ahead of their trial.
“After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of Sept. 11 will finally face justice,” Holder said, without giving a date.
PHOTO: AFP
“They will be brought to New York to answer to their alleged crimes in a courthouse just blocks away from where the Twin Towers once stood,” he said.
Five more Guantanamo detainees, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of plotting the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole destroyer off Yemen that killed 17 US sailors, will be tried before military commissions.
The military tribunals were heavily criticized after being set up by former US president George W. Bush in late 2001, but have since been reformed to grant defendants more rights to evidence and bar evidence obtained through torture.
The announcement, key to US President Barack Obama’s plans to shutter Guantanamo by January, was blasted by families of the nearly 3,000 victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
“To allow a terrorist and a war criminal the opportunity of having US constitutional protections is a wrong thing to do and it’s never been done before,” said Ed Kowalski of the 9/11 Families for a Secure America Foundation.
Peter Gadiel, who lost his 23-year-old son James in the World Trade Center’s north tower, accused Obama of trying to establish a “show trial” that would end up being “a circus.”
The decision drew flak from Obama’s Republican foes in Congress, who have mounted a vigorous campaign to block the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to US soil.
Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called it “a step backwards for the security of our country” that “puts Americans unnecessarily at risk.”
The city’s mayor, Michael Bloomberg, said he supported holding the trial in New York, which suffered the brunt of the attacks.
“It is fitting that 9/11 suspects face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered,” Bloomberg said.
Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union hailed the move.
“The transfer of cases to federal court is a huge victory for restoring due process and the rule of law, as well as repairing America’s international standing, an essential part of ensuring our national security,” said Anthony Romero, the group’s executive director.
“We can now finally achieve the real and reliable justice that Americans deserve. It would have been an enormous blow to American values if we had tried these defendants in a process riddled with legal problems,” he said.
The move to a civilian trial signaled a major shift in the treatment of “war on terror” suspects and raised serious legal questions about evidence potentially tainted by harsh interrogation techniques.
Sheikh Mohammed is known to have been waterboarded — subjected to simulated drowning — 183 times during his years in US custody.
Holder, citing information not yet made public, asserted the tainted evidence would not prevent a “successful” outcome of the trials.
He insisted that a New York jury could still be impartial and that all legal requirements would be met before the suspects are brought onto US soil, with Congress being given a 45-day warning.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates hailed the move as a major step forward as Obama seeks to close the detention center at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba by his self-imposed Jan. 22 deadline.
Officials said that up to 65 of the 215 inmates who still linger at Guantanamo are ready for trial and Holder said to expect more announcements in “the very near future.”
Another 69 Guantanamo inmates are cleared for release but struggling to find countries to take them in. The fate of the remainder — less than 100 — remains unclear.
Greg Craig, tasked by the White House with overseeing Guantanamo’s closure, resigned on Friday after criticism of his handling of the process.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese