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The ringleader of the 9/11 terror attacks is to face public trial in New York, President Obama announced today.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other alleged plotters being held at Guantanamo Bay will be prosecuted in a civilian court. Speaking on a visit to Japan, Mr Obama said Mohammed would “be subject to the most exacting justice”. Details of the decision were expected to be announced by US Attorney General Eric Holder.
In a hugely symbolic move, the trials could take place at a courthouse in lower Manhattan, not far from where the World Trade Centre stood when it was attacked in 2001. Mohammed has already declared that he is willing to plead guilty to plotting the attacks, which killed nearly 3,000 people.
However, it was unclear whether prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
Mr Holder had been considering other trial locations including Virginia, Washington and a different courthouse in New York.
The transfer of detainees to the city from Cuba is not expected to happen for many more weeks because formal charges have not been filed against most of them. The decision to bring such notorious suspects to the US to face trial is a key step in Mr Obama's plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
The president had pledged to shut it by 22 January but his administration is no longer expected to meet the deadline. Mr Obama said today: “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.”
The decision to put the five men on trial in New York could also open the controversy over American use of harsh interrogation techniques on suspects in CIA custody, which started after the 2001 attacks. Waterboarding — or simulated drowning — was used on Mohammed 183 times in 2003, before it was banned.
Mr Holder is also expected to announce that a major suspect in the bombing of USS Cole in 2000, that killed 17 American sailors, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, will face justice before a military commission, as will a handful of other detainees.
Under the military system all five of the 9/11 suspects would face the death penalty but there is some doubt that justice department officials will seek capital punishment against them.
Mohammed has made it clear he would welcome the death sentence, telling a judge last year: “Yes, this is what I wish, to be a martyr for a long time.” If he is not sentenced to death, he faces ending his days in a cell in a US “supermax” prison.
The US government has already sent one Guantanamo detainee, Ahmed Ghailani, to New York to face trial, and chose not to seek the death penalty. But at the last major trial of al Qaeda suspects held in 2001, prosecutors did seek the death penalty 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 blow up several airliners over the Pacific in the Nineties.
Some members of Congress have fought any effort to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial in the United States, saying it would be too dangerous for civilians.
But the Obama administration has defended the planned trials, saying many terrorists have been safely tried, convicted, and imprisoned in the United States, including the 1993 World Trade Centre bomber, Ramzi Yousef, and Richard Reid, the British shoe bomber.
Mohammed and 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 11 September, 2001.
Mohammed admitted to 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 him, oversaw the operation and trained the hijackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Is regarded as one of al Qaeda's most senior operatives. The Pentagon says he admitted masterminding the attacks in New York and Washington.
At a pre-trial hearing at Guantanamo Bay, he also admitted a part in at least 30 other plots, including the 1993 World Trade Center attack, the 2002 Bali bombings and the shoe bomber plot to bring down a plane in 2001. Mohammed is believed to have been born in 1964 or 1965 in Kuwait into a Pakistani family.
He studied at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University and met Bin Laden in Peshawar, Pakistan. He achieved notoriety in a failed plot to blow up airliners over the Pacific in 1995, known as Operation Bojinka.
Ramzi Binalshibh is described as co-ordinator of 9/11 who relayed messages to hijackers after he failed to get a US visa. The Yemeni is said to have joined al Qaeda in Hamburg.
Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali
Also known as Ammar al-Baluchi, accused of being a key lieutenant to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, his uncle, during the 11 September operation.
Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi
A Saudi said to be one of two key financial people used by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to arrange funding for the 9/11 hijackings.
Waleed bin Attash
The Yemeni has admitted masterminding the bombing of American destroyer USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 which killed 17 sailors, says Pentagon.
Reader views (5)
The biggest problem with the waterboarding is that he apparently "confessed" to loads of things that either didn't happen or for which he wasn't responsible - so what price anything else that he said?
Which is not to say that he might not be guilty as hell, but actually making the charges stick is going to be a bit of a challenge, to say the least.
As for the punishment if found guilty, to my mind life without parole in a supermax prison is far, far worse than the death penalty - as he himself seems to acknowledge.
- Michael, London, 13/11/2009 16:37
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About time these people were brought to trial instead of being shut up in Guantanamo. That place must close by next year.
- Dhan Raj, Basildon, 13/11/2009 16:12
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Its going to be difficult!Thanks again to the bush administration and its passion for torturing people.Water boarded 183 times!! my god wouldn't you admit to anything after that? Torture is no way to get to the truth,i don't care who you are but after prolonged torture you will admit to anything to get the torture to stop,and of course that will be part of his defence.And he could be right and totally innocent.thanks to the dumb bush administration we can never be certain now, if a guilty verdict is reached.And just as he is being tried,so should Cheney and Bush etc for there use of torture.
- Kev, London-UK, 13/11/2009 13:52
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He "confessed" after four years of coninuous torture. Do they take us for fools? Who wouldn't confess to anything after four years of "enhanced interrogation" (sic)?
- Neil, London, London UK, 13/11/2009 12:41
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New York eh? So we can expect a fair trial.
- Albert Swift, Aberdeen, Scotland, 13/11/2009 12:32
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