Five Sept. 11 Suspects to Face Trial in New York

Self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be sent to New York to face trial in a civilian federal court, an Obama administration official said Friday.

Attorney General Eric Holder plans to announce the decision later in the morning.

President Obama, speaking in Tokyo, said he will insist that Mohammed be subject to “the most exacting demands of justice” and called the move both a prosecutorial and a national security decision.

“I’m absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheik Mohammad will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice. The American people insist on it. My administration will insist on it,” he said.

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White House to Keep Agencies Focus on Terrorism

The Obama administration is moving to solidify one of the most significant shifts of resources put into place under President George W. Bush: the transformation of the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into agencies where the top priority is counterterrorism rather than conventional law enforcement.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other Justice Department officials have emphasized that they will not cut resources allocated to national security in the foreseeable future, and the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, told lawmakers on Wednesday that “we have no intention of retreating from preventing a terrorist attack on American soil as our No. 1 priority.”

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Some Guantanamo Prisoners Could Be Released In U.S.

Some of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners could be released into the United States while others could be put on trial in the American court system, Attorney General Eric Holder said on Wednesday.

Holder, who was chosen by President Barack Obama to lead the administration’s efforts to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba within a year, said the review of what to do with each of the prisoners had begun. Read more