U.S. prosecutors vie for Sept. 11 plotter trials

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors in New York, Washington and Virginia are vying to try the accused plotters of the Sept. 11 attacks if their cases are moved into U.S. civilian courts, the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo war crimes court said.
File photo of a sketch by courtroom artist Janet Hamlin, reviewed by the U.S. Military, Sept. 11, 2001 attack co-defendants Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (2nd L) and Waleed Bin Attash (L) sit during a hearing at the U.S. Military Commissions court for war crimes, at the U.S. Naval Base, in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, January 19, 2009. (REUTERS/Janet Hamlin)


The Obama administration said last week it would decide by Nov. 16 whether to try Guantanamo prisoners in a revised version of the much-maligned military tribunals or in regular civilian courts.

Case files for self-described 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged al Qaeda co-conspirators are already under review by U.S. attorneys in four federal court districts, the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo court, Navy Captain John Murphy, told journalists at the base late on Sunday.

Those are Washington, the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, and the Eastern District of Virginia, he said.

"They are working with us in a joint review of these cases and it is our collaboration that will ultimately make its way in written reports that go up to the attorney general and the secretary of defense to make a decision," Murphy said.

The Obama administration has ordered the Guantanamo detention camp shut down by Jan. 22 and is still debating what to do with the 226 captives it holds. Murphy said he still hopes to try 65 of them in military tribunals.

Some of those have already been indicted in U.S. federal courts, though Murphy would not say how many.

President Barack Obama has said he considers military commissions to be an appropriate forum for terrorism trials of Guantanamo captives but would prefer to try them in the federal courts if feasible.

Many congressional representatives, Republicans and Democrats alike, have tried to block efforts to move any Guantanamo prisoners to the United States, where they would enjoy U.S. constitutional rights.

EVER-CHANGING RULES

The federal court districts in question are near the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and holding the accused plotters' trials near the sites of the hijacked plane attacks would draw from a pool of jurors close to the conflagration.

The five defendants are accused of 2,973 counts of murder and could be executed if convicted.

Moving the cases into the federal courts, where the rules are well established, would remove one major criticism of the ever-changing Guantanamo tribunals, which have undergone several revisions since U.S. President George W. Bush first authorized them shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Obama has asked Congress for additional changes to the 2006 law underpinning the current set of rules, including banning the use of evidence obtained through coercion and making it more difficult to use hearsay evidence.

The changes were approved in the Senate but are still pending in the House of Representatives, which has given no indication when or if it will take up the matter.

"We all understand that ultimately whether we can proceed with a case or not will be dependent on what the legislation looks like in the end," Murphy said.

If the tribunals survive, they could be held at other locations once Guantanamo is closed, Murphy said, adding that no location had been decided upon.

Over the objections of military defense lawyers, pretrial hearings were scheduled at Guantanamo this week in the Sept. 11 case and in the case of a Saudi prisoner accused of plotting boat-bomb attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

Obama asked last week for a 60-day freeze on the proceedings, until his administration decides where the trials will take place. The judges scheduled hearings to consider that request and to address the Sept. 11 defendants' request to fire all their lawyers.

"President Obama's words apparently don't amount to a hill of beans in (Defense Secretary Robert) Gates' Guantanamo," said Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, which is working with civilian defense lawyers.

"What part of 'Halt' does the Department of Defense not understand?"

The military defense lawyers contend the hearing is designed to give the defendants another chance to boast of their guilt as they have in previous hearings, providing more non-coerced confessions for use against them at trial.