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Reply With QuoteUh, are these the guys who blew up the Exxon Food Mart?)
Prof
Well this aint gonna be easy but if found guilty i hope they fry and not get a Lockerbie repatriation .
September 11 suspects to be tried in New York
The accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks and four other top terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay will prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said .
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other men accused of the attacks were being prosecuted in military commissions at the U.S. naval base in Cuba, but U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to close the prison by mid-January and move some cases to U.S. criminal courts.
"I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people will insist on it. My administration will insist on it," Obama said in Tokyo during a trip through Asia.
Civil rights advocates hailed the decision to move some of the cases to traditional U.S. criminal courts, but Republicans blasted the Obama administration for bringing terrorism suspects to the U.S. soil, arguing it could spark new attacks.
Five other Guantanamo prisoners, including the alleged mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole warship in Yemen, Abd al-Rahim al Nashiri, and a young Canadian accused of killing a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan, will be tried in revamped military commissions.
It will likely be a daunting task to put the men on trial in New York, where the World Trade Centre twin towers were felled by hijacked planes on Sept 11, 2001. Almost 3,000 people were killed in the attacks that day.
"I am confident in the ability of our courts to provide these defendants a fair trial, just as they have for over 200 years," Holder told reporters. "The alleged 9/11 conspirators will stand trial in our justice system before an impartial jury under long-established rules and procedures."
Holder said that he would authorise prosecutors to seek the death penalty against the five men accused of the September 11 attacks and that they would be held at a federal detention facility in New York.
The decisions about the 10 terrorism suspects came as Obama's top lawyer, Gregory Craig, who was charged with leading the White House's troubled effort to close Guantanamo, announced his resignation on Friday.
TANKIE.
Uh, are these the guys who blew up the Exxon Food Mart?
Prof
Seriously, I hope Khalid Sheik Mohammed gets fried, but I'm a little concerned about a venue problem in the Southern District of New York. Please, please, please, Feddies, let's not get involved in some sort of reversable error situation here.
Prof
Ah! amended it to 9/11, didya? Too quick for me, alas.
Prof
Soz dislexic fnigers
TANKIE.
That SOB Khadr is going to be tried in US court too, I hope they execute his candy a$$.
What's really depressing and really upsetting as a Canadian is, there are some people who are "shocked" that Khadr is going to be tried there, and not allowed to be let back in Canada. I'm truly shocked and disgusted how people think Khadr could be "un-brainwashed."
If we stay true to who we are, KSH is going to go free because our government in all its wisdom decided to ignore our framers and use torture. Luckily for the feds, the Robert's Court doesn't really care about liberty.Originally Posted by Prof
Let's get Judge Ito and Marcia Clark back in the court room.
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.
Thoughts on this? I don't see why they don't try him in, say, Wyoming or something. I can understand some of the motivations of trying him in NYC, but I think there'd be alot of costs with police escorts, security for possible terrorism, etc.
BBC NEWS | Americas | New York 9/11 trial ignites rowNew York 9/11 trial ignites row
Senior US Republicans have condemned the Obama administration's move to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others in New York.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said bringing the suspects from Guantanamo into the US was would put "Americans unnecessarily at risk".
The five will be tried in a civilian court near Ground Zero. The prosecution says it will seek the death penalty.
Democrats hailed the decision, while families of 9/11 victims are divided.
The move is part of US President Barack Obama's efforts to close the Guantanamo detention centre for terror suspects.
Bloomberg support
Sen John McCain, a Republican who lost to Mr Obama in the 2008 presidential race, stated that military tribunals were the best venue for terror suspects.
"They are war criminals, who committed acts of war against our citizens and those of dozens of other nations," he said.
But Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said the decision demonstrates "to the world that the most powerful nation on earth also trusts its judicial system".
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg - an independent - also backed the move: "It is fitting that 9/11 suspects face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered."
Two Yemenis, a Saudi and a Pakistani-born Kuwaiti will face trial alongside Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.
They are accused of helping finance and plan the attacks of 11 September 2001 in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.
No date was given for a trial, but US media reports say Congress needs at least 45 days' notice before the detainees can be transferred to the US.
The five men had until now been facing prosecution at US military commissions in Guantanamo. The government had faced a 16 November deadline to decide how to proceed in their cases.
This is a big big blunder. To have those guys come back on U.S Soil, wow. This trial better go fast and end very quickly. Those scumbags also better not be with the general public, they should be living in the hole until their execution.
I'm afraid that, as poetic as the government seems to think doing so will be, trying these critters in the Southern District of New York is a baaaad idea. This is major-league dumb insofar as it risks these assholes being set free altogether on appeal because of reversable error. I like the Wyoming idea. Git that trial as far away from ground zero as it can git got, to lapse into my native tongue. I doubt if there's any venue in the US where these guys can get an untainted jury pool, but Manhattan? Gimmee a break. If they're convicted I'd like them to stay convicted.
Prof
By way of footnote, public perception in the ME and the Muslim world is going to be that this trial is a farce. To people in that part of the world no other conclusion can be drawn when they hear the Justice Dept defend the decision to try them in a criminal court by saying we're "confident" they'll be convicted.
To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato
Hmm. I don't get what appears to be fairly common hostility to the idea of trying them in a federal criminal courtroom. The Cole business was an attack on the US Navy, so I would think that a military tribunal would be a logical & appropriate assignment of jurisdiction, but but for all the "War on Terror" talk the 9/11 atrocities were very large civilian crimes committed by civilians with primarily civilian victims, & more appropriately tried in a civilian court.
Also, I'm not particularly concerned with what the Muslim World thinks about our style of jurisprudence, or whether or not potential prosecutors make confident noises. They always do, anyway, & if the critters think that Sharia is fairer & more objective than an adversarial trial based on Common Law & precedent, well, OK. They can think that the sky is a giant blue dome with holes in it if they want. A bunch of them probably do.
Prof
Alan Dershowitz made that point in an article today.
America is on trial as much as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed - The Globe and Mail
From what I understand, KSM's interrogation had two phases: before and after waterboarding, that his admission to masterminding the 9/11 attack came before. The after part had more to do with milking information from him about AQ activities.
Dershowitz raises the issue of KSM's children who were captured with him and to the possibility that his attorneys might argue that he confessed under duress fearing for their safety.
In any event, KSM and the others are the "alleged" conspirators, innocent until proven guilty.
The NYC venue is easy to see from a symbolic POV, but overplaying the symbolism would be a mistake. We're on trial here too. If McVeigh got Denver, KSM should get as much. Show trials don't go down well in history.
To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato
Good points JAD. The whole mess with torture has tainted this process enough already. It needs to be cleaner than clean from now on. This isn't for the benefit of America's enemies, but for allies, potential allies & plain old fencesitters. If America plans to talk the talk it will need to walk the walk by its own standards, not the lower ones of its opponents.
Win nervously lose tragically - Reds C C
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