For Immediate Release
11/19/2009

We are encouraged by Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that the trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and four additional detainees, Walid Muhammed Salih Mubarak Bin Attash, Ramzi Bin Al Shibh, Ali Abdul-Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsawi, would be moved to our Federal Court system in New York City.

Unfortunately, this has evoked a knee-jerk reaction that has been brought to an almost feverish pitch by the media pundits and the politicians. This response seems to be agenda driven rhetoric unsupported by facts.

Fear mongering is a tactic that is often used by those in power to hide wrongdoing. Perhaps those responsible for ordering torture have something to hide. Could those people be creating this frenzy?

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/11/former_nj_gov_thomas_kean_says.html

Former N.J. Gov. Thomas Kean opposes trial in N.Y.C. for alleged mastermind of 9/11 attacks By Brian Donohue/The Star-Ledger
November 17, 2009, 10:59AM

NEW YORK -- Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the commission that investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, today criticized the decision by the Obama administration to try the alleged mastermind of the attacks in federal court in New York.

In what he described as his first interview since the decision by United States Attorney General Eric Holder last week, Kean told WNYC radio he feared an open trial in Manhattan federal court would make the suspect, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed a "martyr" and "hero" among al Qaeda sympathizers around the world.

Thomas H. Kean, former New Jersey governor and chairman of the 9/11 Commission, and Co-Chair Lee H. Hamilton confer during a news conference in 2005 in Washington, D.C.

Kean's comments came in a radio interview with Brian Lehrer on WNYC.

Kean, a Republican who is also former governor of New Jersey, appeared on the program with fellow 9/11 commission member Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democrat.

Justice in the "Post-9/11 World." - Jon

Source: politico.com

11/18/2009

Americans who are troubled by the decision to send alleged Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York for trial will feel better about it when he’s put to death, President Barack Obama said Tuesday.

During a round of network television interviews conducted during Obama’s visit to China, the president was asked about those who find it offensive that Mohammed will receive all the rights normally accorded to U.S. citizens when they are charged with a crime.

“I don't think it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him,” Obama told NBC’s Chuck Todd.

When Todd asked Obama if he was interfering in the trial process by declaring that Mohammed will be executed, Obama, a former constitutional law professor, insisted that he wasn’t trying to dictate the result.

Considering that only 16% of Americans in 2006 said they believed the Bush Administration was "telling the truth" about "what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States" http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/13469 , the results of this poll are puzzling and disturbing. Why are so many Americans not interested in a public trial, if they're so sure of KSM's guilt? Why are so many Americans willing to tolerate secret evidence and other limitations on the human rights of the accused? The percentages in the polls show that some of the same people supporting military tribunals are also skeptical the Bush Administration has told the truth about 9/11. It seems likely that significant numbers of Americans believe that, whatever responsibility the Bush Administration (and/or others) bear for 9/11, that KSM and the other accused did play a role in the 9/11 attacks. And KSM et al may well have played a role- but let's have the evidence produced, in a public courtroom, where it can be challenged by competent defense counsel, and weighed by a jury and the interested public. - loose nuke

While this article does not question the general narrative about how 9/11 happened and who was responsible, it does highlight some important facts about the stated motivations of KSM, Bin Laden and Islamic radicals in general, that the MSM are omitting, as usual- even though its been noted by the 9/11 Commission, Dick Cheney and the Pentagon's Defense Science Board, among others. It's not because "they hate our freedoms"; it's US policy makers' support of tyrant allies in oil-rich nations, and one-sided support for Israel, despite its human rights abuses. - loose nuke

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/111509a.html
Shining Light on Roots of Terrorism

By Ray McGovern
November 15, 2009
Media commentary on the upcoming 9/11 trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has raised concern that state secrets may be divulged, including details about how the Bush administration used torture to extract evidence about al-Qaeda.

“I think that we’re going to shine a light on something that a lot of people don’t want to look at” is how American Civil Liberties Union attorney Denney LeBoeuf put it, according to The New York Times on Saturday.

What Happens If a 9/11 Terrorist Defendant is Found Not Guilty?

"I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice," President Obama said in Tokyo. "The American people will insist on it and my administration will insist on it."

But what happens if KSM or any of the other 9/11 defendants the Obama administration is bringing to New York for criminal prosecutions -- including Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi -- are somehow found not guilty?

Attorney General Eric Holder brushed off the question, saying, "I would not have authorized the bringing of these prosecutions unless I thought that the outcome -- in the outcome we would ultimately be successful. I will say that I have access to information that has not been publicly released that gives me great confidence that we will be successful in the prosecution of these cases in federal court."

November 15, 2009
Portrait of 9/11 ‘Jackal’ Emerges as He Awaits Trial
By MARK MAZZETTI

WASHINGTON — Not long after he was rousted from bed and seized in a predawn raid in Pakistan in March 2003, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed gave his captors two demands: He wanted a lawyer, and he wanted to be taken to New York.

After a nearly seven-year odyssey that took him to secret Central Intelligence Agency jails in Europe and an American military prison in Cuba, Mr. Mohammed is finally likely to get his wish.

He will be the most senior leader of Al Qaeda to date held to account for the mass murder of nearly 3,000 Americans, facing trial in Manhattan while his boss, Osama bin Laden, continues to elude a worldwide dragnet.

US Attorney General Eric Holder recently announced that five detainees would be moved from Guantanamo Bay to New York, where they would stand trial for carrying out the 9/11 attacks. However, five other detainees will continue to be tried before military commissions, which have lower standards of evidence. The five detainees coming to New York have previously indicated they intend to plead guilty, although the five to be tried before military commissions have not.

The New York five are:

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed;

Ramzi bin al-Shibh;

Ali Abdul Aziz Ali;

Mustafa al-Hawsawi; and

Khallad bin Attash.

Source: nytimes.com

By CHARLIE SAVAGE
Published: November 13, 2009

WASHINGTON —Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said early on Friday.

But the Obama administration has decided to prosecute Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri — the Guantanamo detainee accused of planning the 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen — and several other detainees before a military commission, the official said.

Both decisions are expected to be announced at the Department Justice later on Friday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because that press conference has not yet taken place.

Mr. Obama, asked about the decision during a news conference on his week-long trip to Asia, declined to comment directly, but said that Mr. Mohammed would face justice.

N.Y. 9/11 trial looms: Feds weigh moving ex-Al Qaeda 'military commander' Khalid Shaikh Mohammed

BY James Gordon Meek
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Tuesday, October 13th 2009, 4:00 AM

WASHINGTON - The confessed 9/11 mastermind and four other killers from Guantanamo Bay may soon be flown to New York to face death penalty trials, the Daily News has learned.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates will decide by Nov. 16 whether to yank the plotters out of the U.S. base in Cuba and send them to a courthouse blocks from Ground Zero, officials confirmed.

The Justice Department is prepared to swiftly indict five detainees linked to 9/11 - including ex-Al Qaeda "military commander" Khalid Shaikh Mohammed - if Gitmo trials are scrapped, officials said.

That outcome is highly probable.

"If the decision is made to go to a federal court, there could be indictments as soon as early next year," an Obama administration official told The News.

Two other officials confirmed that.

Today saw the eighth anniversary of 9/11 and, as usual, there were a slew of articles. The most interesting was this one on ABC, which probably requires three posts to digest fully. I have previously expressed extreme scepticism at some of the statements reportedly made by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM) under waterboarding and other torture, and this report further confirms my suspicions he told his interrogators a pack of lies, which they and then the 9/11 Commission believed to an unhealthy extent.

The ABC article is about an FBI mole who had penetrated a radical mosque in Florida. It begins:

How a Detainee Became An Asset
Sept. 11 Plotter Cooperated After Waterboarding

By Peter Finn, Joby Warrick and Julie Tate
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, August 29, 2009

After enduring the CIA's harshest interrogation methods and spending more than a year in the agency's secret prisons, Khalid Sheik Mohammed stood before U.S. intelligence officers in a makeshift lecture hall, leading what they called "terrorist tutorials."

In 2005 and 2006, the bearded, pudgy man who calls himself the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks discussed a wide variety of subjects, including Greek philosophy and al-Qaeda dogma. In one instance, he scolded a listener for poor note-taking and his inability to recall details of an earlier lecture.

CIA 'threatened' 9/11 mastermind's children

By Washington correspondent Kim Landers and wires

Mohammed was held at secret CIA prisons until 2006 before his arrival at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

American interrogators threatened to kill the children of the self-confessed September 11 mastermind, a new declassified CIA report says.

One interrogator allegedly told Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that if there was another terrorist attack in the US "we're going to kill your children", the document released by the US Justice Department says.

The report also says Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a suspect in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in which 17 US sailors were killed, was told his mother could be raped in front of him if he did not cough up information.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/us/23gitmo.html?_r=1&ref=us

August 23, 2009
Detainee to Question 9/11 Suspect
By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has granted a prisoner challenging his detention by the military at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, permission to ask questions of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of Al Qaeda’s Sept. 11 plot who is the camp’s most notorious inmate.

Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of the United States District Court in Washington, D.C., granted the request, which the government had vehemently opposed, only under tightly controlled conditions.

The ruling was issued Thursday in the case of the detainee, Abdul Raheem Ghulam Rabbani, a Pakistani who has been held as a terrorism suspect for five years despite claiming that he did only menial work for Mr. Mohammed, who has been held under extraordinary security since his capture.

Source: miamiherald.com

BY DEVLIN BARRETT
ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Accused al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed complained that interrogators tortured lies out of him, though he proudly took credit for more than two dozen other terror plots, according to newly released sections of government transcripts.

"I make up stories," Mohammed said at one point in his 2007 hearing at Guantánamo Bay.

In broken English, he described an interrogation in which he was asked the location of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

"Where is he? I don't know," Mohammed said. 'Then he torture me. Then I said, 'Yes, he is in this area or this is al Qaeda which I don't know him.' I said no, they torture me."

Yet at the same military tribunal hearing, Mohammed ticked off a list of 29 terror plots in which he took part.

The transcripts were released as part of a lawsuit in which the American Civil Liberties Union is seeking documents and details of the government's terror detainee programs.