What’s news today Civilian trial of 9/11 suspects poses legal risks, spurs debate

? Confessed mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other alleged 9/11 plotters will face a federal trial in New York, Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday in an announcement that left intact the war court at Guantanamo.

Charges against the alleged al-Qaida kingpin have not yet been filed in Manhattan, N.Y., scene of the attack on the World Trade Center.

But the decision to bring to civilian court the mass murder case of nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, underscored the White House’s determination to ultimately empty the prison camps in southeast Cuba.

“They will be brought to New York — to New York — to answer to their alleged crimes in a courtroom just blocks away from where the Twin Towers once stood,” Holder said.

He urged prosecutors to seek the death penalty, and swept aside security fears.

Political protest

The announcement unleashed a wave of political protest. GOP opponents accused the White House of jeopardizing a near-certain military conviction, potentially exposing U.S. intelligence secrets, and risking a legal loophole that could free enemies onto American streets.

Critics railed at the White House for continuing to use the war court at Guantanamo, calling it inferior justice despite congressional reforms.

The 9/11 case has been mired in controversy in part because the CIA reportedly secretly subjected Mohammed to waterboarding 183 times — an interrogation technique the Obama administration calls torture.

“Islamo-fascist terrorism is a threat to our national security and should be treated accordingly,” said Florida’s GOP junior senator, George LeMieux. “The men who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks are not bank robbers — they are dedicated to destroying our way of life.”

Holder countered that, in authorizing two-track trials that send some Guantanamo cases to federal court, the 9/11 case would stand the scrutiny of a civilian judge and jury.

“I have access to information that has not been publicly released that gives me great confidence that we will be successful in the prosecution of these cases,” he said.

Mohammed and his co-accused have bragged about “the fall of the towers on the blessed 9/11” in letter to their Army judge at Guantanamo.

They allegedly directed, financed and trained the 19 hijackers who piloted airplanes into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and a Pennsylvania field on 9/11.

‘Demands of justice’

President George W. Bush ordered the 9/11 accused and other high-value detainees moved to Cuba from secret CIA custody in 2006 to go before his administration’s special tribunals.

But President Barack Obama said while in Tokyo on a trip to Asia that the 9/11 accused “will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice” in civilian court.

Administration officials said that it would mostly use federal court for terror suspects accused of crimes on U.S. soil and reserve military commission trials for more classic battlefield or overseas cases.

As if signaling that policy, Holder announced five military cases would go forward at Guantanamo because no U.S. site has been chosen yet for the war crimes trials.

He approved reactivation of the death penalty prosecution of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Yemeni man and former CIA detainee accused of conspiring in the October 2000 al-Qaida attack that killed 17 American sailors on the USS Cole. Al-Nashiri, like Mohammed, was waterboarded by the CIA, and his volunteer civilian lawyer accused the Obama administration of subjecting him to second-class justice.

The FBI investigated the Cole bombing “as a criminal case,” said criminal defense lawyer Nancy Hollander of Albuquerque, N.M. “The fact that this is going to a commission is a travesty.”

There were no immediate plans to move Mohammed or any of the other accused to U.S. soil. By law, the White House must notify Congress 45 days before a Guantanamo transfer to U.S. trial. Besides, federal prosecutors had yet to bring charges in Manhattan.

House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said that a federal trial left open “the possibility” that the 9/11 accused “could be found ‘not guilty’ due to some legal technicality just blocks from ground zero.”

“This decision is further evidence that the White House is reverting to a dangerous pre-9/11 mentality — treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue and hoping for the best,” he said.