The Obama administration is "close to a decision" on how and where to try the alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four others, Attorney General Eric Holder said.The administration had to backtrack from its announcement last year after objections from New York's mayor and victims families.
"We have been working on it, and I think we are close to a decision," Holder told nearly a year after he announced his initial and controversial decision to prosecute the five in a New York civilian court.
Speaking alongside Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and their Canadian counterparts, he declined to offer any specifics on possible timing for a decision over where to prosecute the five Al Qaeda associates.
The decision will be guided by "what is best for the case and for justice in that case," Holder said adding, "I would hope that whatever the decision is, it would be one that would be judged on the merits."
Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and is being held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba.
In March 2007 Mohammed reportedly admitted -- after being subjected to waterboarding and other alleged torture by U.S. interrogators -- to planning the Sept. 11 attacks and other terrorist acts. In February 2008 a military commission charged him and the other four with war crimes and 2,973 counts of murder — one for each person killed in the attacks in New York, at the Pentagon and on the passenger jet that crashed in Pennsylvania. They face the death penalty if convicted.
Asked if the coming Republican takeover of the House of Representatives will make it harder for the Obama administration to prosecute the alleged 9/11 conspirators in a civilian court, Holder parried saying only that the process is "an on-going one."
Within an hour of Holder's remarks, Republican representative Peter T. King, who is expected to become chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee in January, called on the Obama administration to have the military prosecute the case.
"I urge Attorney General Holder not to hold any 9/11 trials in New York or anywhere in the United States. These 9/11 terrorists should be tried before a military commission at Guantanamo," King said in the statement.
Some Justice Department officials cited by Media reports insisted the Justice Department has already made a decision: the same one that was announced in November 2009, placing the trials in New York City.
Within months of that decision, however, Holder and the Obama administration backed off, thanks in large part to opposition from New York City officials, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Republican lawmakers in Washington.
Democrat senator Chuck Schumer has also opposed any civilian prosecution in his state.
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