Twitter
StumbleUpon
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Newsvine
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiTrials at Ground Zero for September 11 Accused
Five men set to leave Guantanamo Bay to face trial in a civilian court in New York
More than eight years after two hijacked planes smashed into the Twin Towers of lower Manhattan killing thousands and sparking foreign wars, five men accused of helping to plot the carnage are to be brought to face trial in a civilian courthouse just a few blocks away from Ground Zero.
![[Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a new picture, reportedly taken by the International Red Cross, which purports to show him at Guantanamo Bay. (AP)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/gbay3_262273s_small_0.jpg "gbay3_262273s_small.jpg")
The
defendants, who include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-declared
mastermind of the al-Qa'ida attacks of 2001, will be transferred,
possibly in a matter of weeks, to New York City from the fortified US
military camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they are currently being
held.
The decision, announced yesterday by the US Attorney General, Eric Holder, is central to the efforts of President Barack Obama to fulfil the promise he made on taking office to close Guantanamo Bay, although US officials now concede that the original deadline of 22 January next year might not be met.
While bringing the five 9/11 defendants to the scene of their alleged crime drew most attention - not least from those worried about the security implications of their coming to New York - Mr Holder also announced that five other high-profile detainees at Guantanamo will also be transferred out for trial by a revised military commission. He did not say where the commission tribunals would take place, however.
No details of the precise nature of the charges against the 9/11 five were available. But Mohammed and the four others bound for Manhattan - Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali - will face the death penalty if they are convicted, Mr Holder said.
President Obama, who wants to erase the perception that America has been hypocritical in its treatment of the detainees by not granting them the proper protections of civilian justice, voiced his confidence in the decision. "I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subjected to the most exacting demands of justice," he told reporters in Tokyo, on the first day of his Asian tour.
But there is no disguising the risks involved in bringing the five to New York, legal and political. The task of the prosecutors will be complicated above all by the past history of "enhanced interrogation" techniques used by the CIA, which could make some evidence inadmissible. Documents have shown that water-boarding, which simulates near-drowning, was used on Mohammed 183 times in 2003.
Saying that these were the most difficult decisions he has faced since becoming Attorney General, Mr Holder dodged questions about what would happen specifically if Mohammed or any of his co-defendants were to be acquitted. It would seem inconceivable to most Americans, and certainly to relatives of the 2,973 people who were killed by the 9/11 attacks, that they would be allowed to walk out free.
Mr Holder repeatedly insisted that he was confident that the prosecutions of the five coming to New York would succeed, revealing also that he was privy to evidence regarding their alleged crimes that has not yet been released publicly. "For over 200 years our nation has relied upon a faithful adherence to the rule of law," he asserted. "Once again, we will ask our legal system in two venues to answer that call."
The five detainees headed for trial by military commission - the formats of which have been revised by the Obama administration to offer defendants more legal protections - include the principal suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. There was speculation that the commission's trials would take place on a Navy brig on the South Carolina coast.
The prospect of Mohammed and the other alleged 9/11 conspirators coming to New York triggered instant and furious debate. "By trying them in our federal courts, we demonstrate to the world that the most powerful nation on earth also trusts its judicial system," insisted Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
But many Republicans voiced alarm as did some of the victims' relatives. "We have a President who doesn't know we're at war," complained Debra Burlingame, whose brother Charles was pilot of the plane that was hijacked and smashed into the Pentagon. She said she was appalled by "the prospect of these barbarians being turned into victims by their attorneys" as claims of their having been tortured are aired.
When the five arrive in New York, probably early next year, they are likely to be held in a fortified jail in lower Manhattan near the court. Called the Metropolitan Correctional Center, it has served as a temporary home to the likes of Mafia captains and Wall Street fraudsters.
36 Comments so far
Show AllWho does David Usborne think he is when pretending that he can speak for most Americans. Quote: "It would seem inconceivable to most Americans, and certainly to relatives of the 2,973 people who were killed by the 9/11 attacks, that they would be allowed to walk out free". And when, at the end of the piece, he refers to Repubs flaming because of bringing five of the detainees to NYC for trial there, he is awfully omissive of many 9-11 Family members who have stated and would again state a wholly opposite view; and there was a video posted at CD over the past few days that represents not one, but three important members of 9-11 families, including the mother of a firefighter who died when trying to save people in one of the WTC towers that came down, while another women speaking in the video is mother of a police officer who did because of those attacks in NYC. Usborne bogusly refers to a Repub. woman who still seems to be wholly unaware of the evident fact that there is NO actual proof that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.
Most Americans know the detainees at Guant. Bay prison, and other U.S. GWoT prisons, were very tortured and many times, while I suppose most Americans have also learned that torture is not a reliable way of obtaining the truth; victims often tell the torturers what they want to hear.
It does seem inconceivable, however, that five will be tried in NYC, while another five will be tried in a "revised" military commission. Why this discrimination? What's the government trying to hide?
What we need most of all is a new 9-11 Commission inquiry, a fully honest one that is NOT obstructed by the White House, the President and VP, and the CIA, as happened the first time.
Usborne's article is very much garbage; being extremely omissive. This leaves him seeming to be another unrealistic individual who believes the whole "official story" on the 9-11 attacks is like Gospel Truth, when it's really the greatest of all of the conspiracy theories.
A majority, even a serious one, of NY'ers want a new 9-11 Commission inquiry, a real one that is NOT obstructed (criminally) as the first one was. And the same applies with a majority of the members of 9-11 Families, for anyone who bothers to read more than usual news. The first inquiry's report was seriously denounced by several of the commissioners, even!
Usborne is just pumping out more bs propaganda, and his omissions, which is mostly what he does, while simply leaving them omitted, of course, make him a LOUSY journalist; when it comes to the topic of 9-11 anyway.
For galee, his lawyers should make sure they pick the same jury that recently found the two Bear Sterns hedge fund managers not guilty of a fraud in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis in only six hours of deliberation.
Now, if that could happen, it would be a reality show not to be missed.
The more I better I know this country and the more I see, the more I realize that this is the Upsidedown Kingdom.
I'm glad he's going on trial. I'm glad this won't be a military commission. I think Obama is putting trust in the better angels of our judicial system, an act that has Rethuglicans worried we'll actually realize that those that attacked us are human beings, not creatures.
This is what many of us correctly criticized the Cheney/Bush Junta for not doing. What is it about so many so-called progressives that when Obama DOES make the correct move, we aren't there to support it? Can't we support the correct action without ipso facto being all the ugly things I read being hurled on CD comment boards like Dem apologist, naive party hack, closet conservative, etc, etc, etc?
I've got serious misgivings about our prez for NOT being the socialist the fundie tea-baggers say he is, but by God he's doing the right thing in this instance, and we should support that action, even if we don't like much of the rest of what he's doing... or should I say, not doing?
And for those of you who believe 9/11 was an inside job, well, this is good news for you as well. A vigorous defense will question his participation in the event, if it can. If he's proven guilty BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT, then you'll just have to accept the prospect that you might've been mistaken.
Ya know, I'm no fan of OBL, but unlike the other side, I've bothered to actually listen to his greivances. They are all cogent, and hit on many of the abuses of our military/industrial/corporate complex that many of us correctly criticize and resist here at CD and in our own lives.
OBL, and his cohort featured here, KSM, however, turned to theocratic fascism and indescriminate violence to resist it. I don't support that either... Whether it be of the Muslim variety or of our very own home-grown Christian version that writers like Chris Hedges have alerted us to.
We have a judicial system in this country that when allowed to operate within the Constitution--as it wasn't under Shrub and Darth Cheney--actually works pretty well, and which I still place alot of faith in.
I say try the son of a bitch. If he's found guilty in a fair trial he's got what punishment he deserves coming to him. And it'll be the sane, civilized way to address a crime, not the insane path terrorists and many world leaders have so often chosen: that of the bomb, the gun, the tank, the missile... The plane loaded full of innocent people...
I am so sick to death of bloody-minded people hurling explosives at each other and having unarmed, innocent civilians caught in the crossfire.
That goes for ALL SIDES!!!
This is a trial. It is part of the solution, people. Obama is doing something correct for a... um, ...CHANGE!
Doing the right thing.......
I guess that you had never heard of Craig Murray, the ex-ambassador from Britain to Uzbekistan. He claims to have had inside knowledge of how the CIA was bringing prisoners to Uzbekistan to have them tortured.....The goal of the torture was to have them all sign confessions that they were Al Qaeda members and that they had been trained in camps run by Osama Bin Laden......None of which was true! The CIA's goal was to up the count of Al Qaeda members and distort the truth...
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed underwent years of torture......The CIA had run torture experiments in Mc Gill University in Canada and discovered that people wound up with split personalities, hearing voices, and schizoid......Now let's go back to a you tube of President Bush admitting that, "We got a lot of information from Mohammed and he told us that his operatives were ordered to place the explosives low enough to prevent people from escaping." That statement was made and then spun to say that President Bush meant the planes.....
Whatever Mohammed had signed was contrived by his interrogators, they knew what they wanted him to confess to, otherwise the torture would not have gone on for all those years.....Will Mohammed be given psychiatric treatment before being put on trial? Not!!! Would Mohammed's interrogators have planted the thoughts in his head that he would be a greater martyr than Osama Bin Laden? Absolutely !!! They have signed confessions and a man that wants to admit to being a martyr. How did he get the explosives into World Trade Center #7? (Where are over 200 hours of videos of some of his interrogations?)
Come on be real, "The Corporate Elite" chose Obama to be the next President under the condition that the Occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan continue and that "I do not want to look at the past." becomes total prtection from investigation and prosecution.
This is now a "National Security State" and an independent investigation of 9/11 was never made ......All you see is myth building and the destruction of evidence: from the destruction of documents dealing with Able Danger Group in DOD to the confiscation of all the videos of the attack on the Pentagon,from the chemical analysis of the ashes from New York to the visas given to the alleged terrorists from Saudi Arabia.
Those of us who have been labelled: liberals, leftists, commie-pinkos are merely veterans who served their country honorably in the armed forces and chose careers like teachers and believe in constitutional rights, human rights, civil rights, and "The Rule of Law"........
At the least, there were government officials and military officials that were negligent. At the worst, there were government, civilian, and military personnel complicit in the attacks of 9/11....What "They" have done is created a Mass Media Propaganda Campaign to convince the American People that the "New Enemy" is Islam, and no longer communism.
Will there be a trial? Not with guilty pleas already signed.
Guantanamo is full of prisoners that were illegally kidnapped and transported to a site that was beyond "The Rule Of Law" ......How did each individual become a prisoner? Were people bribed to turn in their neighbors? Were they individuals from the CIA's Database that the CIA had trained durting the 90's? To me you would have to find the arresting officers (Probably CIA Operatives) and have them answer, Why did you arrest said prisoner? You know something, those people would refuse to be identified because of National Security issues,
No fair trial can be held and "The War Party" wants "War" not "Peace". The Enemy needs to be created and feared by the American People so says "The Plan For A New American Century"....
herbert'
Thanks for replying. If you read this it means you cared whether or not I read your post, because now both of us are going into the archives to get here...
With that in mind, I am prepared to read a book that you suggest. I am interested in what you posted, and have questions about 9-11. Some outlandish things I've heard have turned me away from the broader 9-11 truth movement, though I know the offficial 9-11 commission report doesn't tell the whole story.
It seems like the Kennedy Assassination that way. Like there was a coup de etat, and they got away with it.
OK, so along with your recommendation can you also tell me why a prisoner brought on trial in US Federal Courts, and therefore given the same rights as a US citizen, would not get a vigorous defense that would bring to light all the details you just mentioned in your post?
That's something other posters (on 2 different threads) have not been able to do.
This is a genuine request, because you have my attention.
I look forward to your response.
Thanks,
drift
Hi drift, nice, I do point out these guys being found guilty would not bear on us guys accepting whether or not 9-11 was the inside job it was.
Fall guys, and wheels within wheels within wheels....
Anyway, me, towers=inside job, but bldg # 7; I do accept fully the detailed explanation accorded it in the 9-11 Commission Report.
"but bldg # 7; I do accept fully the detailed explanation accorded it in the 9-11 Commission Report."
WRY.
:O)
Gee, how differently would this be choreographed were we to openly call it human sacrifice?
In what sense could we paint this as justice even if we were to try out own?
A: Much different.
How so?
The importance of KSM can hardly be overemphasized. Many of the key claims of the 9/11 Commission Report are based on his testimony, extracted under torture. His testimony is as evidentially worthless as it is inadmissible. (He even told the Red Cross that he made stuff up to stop the torture.) In any case, KSM may be a bad guy but he certainly was not the mastermind of 9/11. He did not have the power to place charges in 3 buildings of the WTC and to force NORAD to sit on its hands for an hour and 40 minutes while "terrorist hijackers" flew around. At most he's a patsy. So, is there any way this trial can begin to expose some of this nonsense?
No, because I can assure you it will be a kangaroo court. The fascists behind 911 will never let the truth expose them, just like you say, KSM is a patsy; just like Oswald has been demonized for 46 years as the only assassin of JFK and was probably an innocent patsy. I believe Ruby was told either you take him out before he can speak or we will take you out and this murder of Oswald was another inside job like 911. Nothing has changed ( inspite of BO's specious rhetoric) because the same people still have the same power they had when they killed JFK.
A: Yes, it could, but only if credible.
off topic:
have the sales of ragtops plummeted since 9/11©?
America is still way ahead in the body count. This is revenge theatrics before the mass execution. Our conservative MIC and fundies will score a propaganda victory. Their conservative enemy will have another cause to recruit suicide bombers.
A fair trial is a long way from "revenge theatrics."
I'd say flying a plane loaded full of innocent people into a building because you're resisting US foreign policy--if that were indeed what really happened-- is the most successful, high profile example of revenge theatrics anyone has ever pulled off.
I guess one good show deserves another
We have tortured this man for years, not only by waterboarding him 183 times, but by torturing his children. And now we give him a show trial. Before we pat ourselves on the back, let's at least reveal what has happened to the little boys, aged 7 and 9, in our custody. Are they still alive, or did we kill them? We know that Bush administration lawyer John Yoo said that there was no law against torturing children to influence their parents.
http://www.amnesty.ca/take_action/actions/
pakistan_children_enforced_disappearance.php
From Amnesty International, Canada:
In September 2002, Yusuf al-Khalid, then nine years-old, and Abed al-Khalid, then seven years-old, were reportedly apprehended by Pakistani security forces during an attempted capture of their father, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Reports by other detainees indicate that the boys were ill-treated while in Pakistani custody. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was apprehended in March 2003 and was subjected to over three years of enforced disappearance, and to other torture and ill-treatment, by the US authorities before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay, where he is currently held.
After Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's arrest in March 2003, Yusuf and Abed Al Khalid were reportedly transferred out of Pakistan to US custody -- allegedly for questioning about their father's activities and to be used as leverage to force their father to co-operate. A Sunday Telegraph (UK) article in March 2003 alleged that CIA interrogators had detained the children and that one official explained that: "We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children...but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible. We have child psychologists on hand at all times and they are given the best of care." In the transcript of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Combatant Status Review Tribunal in March 2007, he indicates knowledge that his children were apprehended and abused: "They arrested my kids intentionally. They are kids. They been arrested for four months, they had been abused." Their whereabouts remain unknown.
I hope ALL of this comes out in the trial. I hope that his treatment in our custody comes out in the trial. I hope that that will then lead to further calls to investigate prominent Cheney/Bush Junta officials, like Yoo.
But if it's a fair trial, then it won't be for show. And if KSM was actually involved in planning 9/11, then that's something we all deserve to know, and something he deserves to pay for. If he's aquitted, then he walks. And we can have the discussion about who really did it.
"delete...wrong place..
Have I entered the twilight zone? The man in that picture looks just like the man we were told was Osama bin Laden in one of those supposed bin Laden tapes.
This photo on commondreams is cropped from the larger photo on huffingtonpost.com, which shows this man's hands and wrists, too. His wrists and forearms appear to be bruised purple. But we don't torture or mistreat our prisoners now, so that must be some kind of decorative coloring, I guess.
Maybe they're tattoos! They're all the rage, you know.
· Yr Obd't Servant
I'm surprised CD posted this photo.
It plays right into the Bogey Muslim stereo-typing.
vdb, how? I see a man who has survived hell, not caused it, or would. A man who I know was quite heavy, now rail-thin. A victim.
What in the photo is negative?
you and I may see a man with conviction, the herd will see one in need of it.
It's certainly more dignified than the post-torture infoganda image that's been reprehensibly flooding Amerikan media outlets again.
Even a stick-figure would evoke the "Bogey Muslim" if the stereotypers knew it depicted a Muslim.
· Yr Obd't Servant
the bedraggled photo should serve to remind the public of the torture this man has been subjected to.
but it probably wouldn't.
Well, I agree that any photo succumbs to a kind of Murphy's Law, i.e. whatever photo is used, it will inspire the most negative reaction.
I mentioned earlier that I've already seen trolls scorning the bedraggled photo as a "libtard" trick to inspire sympathy for the guy.
Paradoxically, they'd think the same thing even if it were a photo of KSR's severed head. Naturally, that wouldn't stop them from getting their rocks off over it, though.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Interesting term you use, Mr. O.S., "infoganda." This is the first time I've heard it, but I think it fits the purpose quite nicely.
We are going to give you a fair trial and then we are going to hang you just like we did to Saddam. These 5 people may be criminals and "bad guys" but they are just pawns to scare hell out of the American sheeple, when what should scare hell out of them is their own government which in foreign policy is the #1 terrorist in the world! Torture is also terrorism and war is just terrorism with a bigger budget condoned by our corrupt government, who condoned the torture and waterboarding of KSM 183 times. The terrorists like Bush and Cheney, who, I am convinced, covered up 911, and are guilty of lying; war crimes; and the murder of American soldiers for nefarious and punic reasons will never be on trial.
"Mr Holder (Attorney General) dodged questions about what would happen specifically if Mohammed or any of his co-defendants were to be acquitted. It would seem inconceivable to most Americans, and certainly to relatives of the 2,973 people who were killed by the 9/11 attacks, that they would be allowed to walk out free."
Response: A trial in which the defendents have no prospect of being freed is a sham.
Yes, if he's acquitted, he walks.
But Holder is Obama's AG. Of course he's NOT going to utter those words in front of a camera, thereby giving the entire right-wing media complex the perfect gift wrapped present of how to turn public opinion against the trial. The waters are perilous enough already without resorting to being a complete idiot, which I assure you, Mr. Holder is not.
Would that be 'walk out free' as in 'not guilty'? Would a not guilty verdict leave room for questions: like - who really did it?
Yes, it would.
On the other hand...
"Mr Holder (Attorney General) dodged questions about what would happen specifically if Mohammed or any of his co-defendants were to be acquitted.'
Progressive I found the above interesting also. It seems that regardless of the evidence (or how the evidence was obtained) these individuals must be found guilty!!! In the state of Georgia if I were to be found not guilty of any crime I would expect to leave the courtroom a free man.
" A trial in which the defendants have no prospect of being freed is a sham."
A sham indeed....