‘Military trial’ for 9/11 accused

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and four of his alleged co-conspirators will be tried in a military commission at Guantanamo Bay, reports say.

Attorney General Eric Holder is set to announce the decision later on Monday.

The Obama administration had planned to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court, but abandoned that plan in the face of fierce opposition.

President Obama recently lifted a freeze on new military terror trials.

He accused the US Congress of harming national security by opposing his plan to close the controversial Cuban prison and try some terror suspects in US civilian courts.

‘Waterboarding’

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has been held by the US since being captured in Pakistan in 2003.

In a 2007 hearing, he alleged that he had been tortured at Guantanamo Bay. CIA documents confirmed that he had been subjected to the waterboard technique 183 times.

US prosecutors say that Mohammed has confessed to a host of terrorist activities in addition to 9/11.

These include the 2002 nightclub bombing in Bali, Indonesia, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl and a failed 2001 attempt to blow up an airliner using a shoe bomb.

The four other suspected terrorists to face military trials at Guantanamo Bay are Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali and Mustafa Ahmed al Hawsawi, according to reports.

‘War criminal’

When he came into office in 2009, President Obama promised to close Guantanamo Bay within a year. Several months later, his attorney general, Eric Holder, announced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be tried in a civilian court in New York.

But, says the BBC’s Paul Adams, in Washington, in the teeth of widespread opposition, the administration’s plans have gradually been shelved.

Guantanamo is still open and military trials are set to resume there.

Asked about the change of strategy on Monday, the White House spokesman Jay Carney said only that the president’s primary concern was that the alleged 9/11 perpetrators be brought to justice as swiftly and fairly as possible.

Congressional opposition to the president’s plans, he said, had proved very difficult to overcome.

Following news of the announcement, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith, of Texas, was quoted by AFP as saying: “It’s unfortunate that it took the Obama administration more than two years to figure out what the majority of Americans already know: that 9/11 conspirator Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is not a common criminal, he’s a war criminal.”