9/11 Terrorists To Be Tried In Military Commissions At Guantanamo Bay

After several years of attempting to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammad into the civilian federal justice system, the Obama Administration and the Department of Justice have decided that it is best to have him tried in a military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

Mohammed was to have been tried in New York City, but city officials strongly objected to the move and Congress refused to appropriate funds to house Guantanamo inmates on mainland United States and to provide funds for a trial of extraordinary expense.

New York City projected it would cost more than $400 million to provide security for the pre-trial preparation and trial of the suspects in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It would have cost another $206 million annually if the trial ran beyond two years, Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office estimated.

President Obama announced in March his decision to resume military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay after heavy resistance from both Democrats and Republicans over trying suspects in U.S. courts.

Closing the detainee center at Guantanamo Bay was one of the first orders of business Obama announced more than two years ago when he took office. But Obama has faced months of fierce, bipartisan resistance from Congress on his proposal to try Guantanamo detainees on U.S. soil.

The $725 billion National Defense Authorization Act that Obama signed Jan. 7 explicitly prohibits the use of Defense Department funds to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to the United States or other countries. It also bars Pentagon funds from being used to build facilities in the United States to house detainees, as the president originally suggested.

Part of the problem was that the evidence potentially used against Mohammad and other terrorists would not pass muster in federal court, and that could lead to the perverse situation where the admitted mastermind of the worst terror attack in history could be found not guilty, but which the Administration said would never see the light of day because of his being an ongoing risk to American lives. The tribunal enables the Administration to carry out a trial with due process and legal rights without giving the terrorists the freedom to turn the trial into a political trial and mockery of the legal system.

It also shows that the Administration had to bow to the political and legal realities of prosecuting those responsible for the 9/11 terror attacks when those individuals were not captured in the typical American law enforcement method and where those suspects may (or were) subjected to harsh interrogation methods.

The promise to close Guantanamo Bay's detention facilities also ran to a stumbling block because Congress realized that changing the location where the detainees were being held would not change the fact that these individuals were detained (and will be detained) indefinitely due to their risk to Americans should they be repatriated. Members of Congress didn't want these individuals in their Congressional districts, and they didn't want to authorize the spending of still more money to build detention facilities in the US when there was sufficient facilities in Guantanamo Bay.

Osama's Chef Enters Guilty Plea At Gitmo Tribunal

Score one for the tribunal system. Osama bin Laden's chef/bodyguard, Ibrahim al-Qosi, entered a guilty plea before the tribunal at Guantanamo Bay.

Osama Bin Laden's former cook and driver has pleaded guilty at a Guantanamo Bay tribunal to conspiracy and providing support for terrorism.

In a plea deal, Sudanese-born Ibrahim al-Qosi also admitted working as Bin Laden's bodyguard Afghanistan and helping him avoid capture by US forces.

Mr Qosi, 50, has been held at the US naval base on Cuba for eight years.

His plea represents the first conviction for the Obama administration at the controversial war crimes court.

The terms of the deal have yet to be made public.

UPDATE:
Thomas Joscelyn has background on Qosi.

Obama Administration About To Flip On NYC 9/11 Trials?

After announcing that the Obama Administration and the Justice Department would try al Qaeda terror master Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York City courtroom along with four of his minions, claiming that federal court was the proper venue for such trials, the Administration is leaking that the trial option may be shelved in favor of the tribunal system, which I have repeatedly argued was the proper venue all along.

White House advisers are nearing a recommendation for President Barack Obama to choose a military trial for self-professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his alleged henchman, senior administration officials said Thursday.

The review of where and how to hold a Sept. 11 trial is not over, so no recommendation is yet before the president and Obama has not made a determination of his own, officials said. The review is not likely to be finished this week.

Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss private deliberations.

The matter is at the White House after Attorney General Eric Holder decided in November to transfer Mohammed and the four other accused terrorists from the prison at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to New York City for civilian trials. Initially supported by city officials, the idea was later opposed because of costs, security and logistical concerns.

When opposition ballooned further into Congress and an attempted Christmas airline bombing brought massive scrutiny to Obama's terrorism policies, the administration said it would review Holder's trial decision and consider all options for a new location.

In addition to local opposition to a trial, the administration faces pressure on its goal of closing Guantanamo on another front. Republicans in Congress have proposed barring prosecutions of terrorism defendants in federal courts or in reformed military commissions located in the United States.

Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., has proposed legislation that would prevent the Obama administration from putting Mohammed and other terrorists on trial in any American community. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., joined by about half the Senate's Republicans and a few Democrats, has made a similar proposal.

These machinations by the Administration are all about symbolism and catering to the political whims of the left wing of the Democrat party and the ACLU which thinks that the tribunals aren't sufficient for the civil liberties of the terrorists, and which sees the existence of Guanatamo Bay's detention facility as an anathema even though it is a humane detention facility that meets and exceeds the Geneva Convention protocols for such detainees.

The Administration never considered the possibility that the local communities in New York wouldn't want to get inconvenienced again by holding trials that would disrupt the fragile local economy that never fully recovered following the 9/11 attacks due to street closures and security restrictions on traffic and movement. It never considered that providing a federal court trial would only allow the terrorists a public platform from which to lambaste the US government and draw attention away from their heinous deeds to what the US did to them. It never considered the huge security costs that it would impose on the City (and any location holding these trials - even as NYC was the proper forum should that have been the decision).

The US government had already established the tribunal system to handle these kinds of cases, with consultation and input from all three branches of government - court cases litigating various matters, negotiations on the authority and scope of tribunals, etc. The tribunals were the proper forum.

Yet, the Administration realized that not all of the Gitmo detainees could be tried in federal court so they acknowledged that nearly 50 of the detainees would go through the tribunal system and several would go into federal courts. Still others would never see the light of day regardless of the findings - and that included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in statements made by the President and AG Eric Holder.

After months of hand wringing and shoddy legal thinking on the part of the Administration, we're heading back to where we started - tribunals for one of the 9/11 terror masters. It comes as little surprise that the ACLU is against a switch back to tribunals, even though the Administration noted that they would be used in some cases regardless of the related legal fallout of detainees suing that they were denied trials by being placed in tribunals.

The Administration claims that they have the authority to make such decisions, and I don't disagree. I just think that they've made a mess of the whole issue and should have left the tribunals as the proper forum for those detainees captured overseas who were not Mirandized and arrested on US soil under US law enforcement standards.