Khalid Sheik Mohammed, long alleged to be the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks that destroyed the Twin Towers and killed nearly 3000 people, is headed to the Southern District Court of New York to face trial in a civilian court alongside five other alleged co-conspirators, according to the Associated Press.
The move comes over the objections of Republicans and some Democrats who wanted to see the alleged 9/11 conspirators tried by military commission. Sen. Lindsey Graham notably tried to add an amendment to an appropriations bill that would have stopped the Obama administration from bringing the alleged conspirators to a criminal court. Democrats Jim Webb, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor all supported the measure, along with Joe Lieberman. At the time, Graham said:
"Khalid Sheik Mohammed didn't rob a liquor store," Graham said. "He took this nation to war, and he killed 3,000 of our innocent citizens."
That's a bizarre statement -- it's not as though American courts are incapable of handling crimes more serious than petty larceny. A number of convicted terrorists reside in American prisons -- many of them prosecuted in the Southern District of New York. The eyes of the world will be on this trial, and anything less than a full and fair proceeding will undermine the legitimacy of the ultimate result.
Lt. Col. Darrel J. Vandeveld, a former military commissions prosecutor who resigned over the way the commissions were conducted, praised the administration's decision to try the alleged conspirators in criminal court. "This is a welcome decision," Vandeveld wrote in an email. "Fundamentally, the defendants are criminals, terrorists, whom it would pain Lady Justice to shoehorn into military commissions."
So what were Graham and others afraid of? The primary feature of the new military commissions is their ability to keep certain information secret. In a public proceeding, the information about the torture of KSM and others is bound to be a part of the process. I suspect that's the real reason Graham and others would prefer KSM be tried by military commission. KSM was waterboarded 183 times while in American custody.
It's unclear as of now whether the administration will seek the death penalty -- a recent report from the Center for American Progress urged the administration not to, on the grounds that it would grant KSM martyrdom. KSM told a military judge last year that "I wish to be martyred".
Maj. Eric Monalvo (Ret.), who defended former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed Jawad in his military commissions trial, dissented from this view. "I believe taking death off the table is a sign of weakness because in dealing with these radicals, killing and death are all they understand," Montalvo said. "I am not advocating that the only way to go on this is the death penalty, but it should certainly not be taken off the table for fear of martyrdom."
-- A. Serwer
