The Justice Department remained tightlipped Friday as criticism
mounted over the decision to hold the the September 11 terrorist attack
trial in a civilian court in lower Manhattan.
Earlier, senior
Obama administration officials confirmed that the White House is
considering moving the site of the trial if the Justice Department sees
fit.
"Conversations have occurred within the administration to
discuss contingency options should the possibility of a trial in lower
Manhattan be foreclosed upon by Congress or locally," a senior
administration official said.
Justice Department officials
refused to acknowledge whether they are being pressed to find an
alternative location, despite bipartisan concern that holding the trial
in Manhattan would be too costly and disruptive.
"We're reviewing our options," said Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd in a statement Friday.
The administration's turnabout comes
after New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and other politicians expressed
great concern over the costs and disruption of holding the trial of
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four accomplices at a courthouse near Ground
Zero in lower Manhattan.
White House officials said President
Obama agrees with Attorney General Eric Holder's decision in November
to try the suspects in a civilian criminal court in the United States,
not a military tribunal.
"Currently our federal jails hold
hundreds of convicted terrorists, and the president's opinion has not
changed on that," White House spokesman Bill Burton said Thursday.
White House officials say the decision about any possible alternate sites to try Mohammed and the others will come from the Justice Department.
One
government official close to the case said other New York locations,
including a military site on New York Harbor's Governor's Island, are
possibilities. And while Virginia sites also were mentioned as
alternatives by former counterterrorism officials, Virginia Sen. Jim
Webb, a Democrat, opposed moving the trial to his state.
"Bringing
enemy combatants for detention or trial in Washington, D.C., or
Northern Virginia would unnecessarily burden these communities from
both a financial and security perspective," Webb said.
New York
police estimated the cost to the city would be over $200 million per
year in what could be a multi-year trial and that over 2,000
checkpoints would need to be installed around Lower Manhattan. Police
Commissioner Ray Kelly said additional protection would have to be
deployed for the city, not just the core area of Manhattan.
Residents like Pat Moore contemplated what it will be like to live through the trial.
"Those
people would virtually be held prisoner in their homes," Moore said of
New Yorkers who live near the courthouse. "We've all been traumatized,
any of us who were there that day" referring to September 11.
Bloomberg
initially supported the move, saying "it is fitting that 9/11 suspects
face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers
were murdered."
But this week he used different rhetoric when
asked about a community agency's proposal's to relocate the trial,
saying he would prefer the trial be held elsewhere, perhaps at a
military base where it would be easier and cheaper to provide security.
"It's going to cost an awful lot of money and disturb a lot of people," Bloomberg said.
On Thursday, a group of New York politicians urged the Obama administration to thoroughly re-examine locating the trials in downtown Manhattan.
"We
are concerned that the administration has not fully considered the
impact that the trials would have on lower Manhattan in choosing the
Moynihan Courthouse in Foley Square," U.S. Reps. Jerrold Nadler and
Nydia Velazquez, both Democrats, and several state and local officials
said in a letter dated Thursday to Holder.
Also, a spokeswoman
for Gov. David Paterson cited his "hesitation" with the decision,
citing the burdens it would pose on city residents. A spokesman for
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand raised financial concerns, saying her
"single biggest concern is making sure that the federal government
cover the hundreds of millions of dollars per year cost to New York
City for security during the trials."
Julie Menin, chairwoman of
a city community advisory agency, proposed four alternative locations
for the trial within the Southern District of Manhattan: Governors
Island, Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point, and the Bureau of Prisons jail complex at FCI
Otisville.
A West Point spokesman said no one has officially
requested a review of demands for such a trial, which would require
in-depth study of legal and security concerns.
Some U.S.
senators -- including Homeland Security Committee chairman Joe
Lieberman, I-Connecticut -- want the detainees tried in military
commissions.
A letter from one group of senators said a federal
civilian trial would provide militants with "one of the most visible
platforms in the world to exalt their past acts and to rally others in
support of further terrorism."
One
congressman, U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Virginia, is planning to introduce
legislation that would cut off funding for the trial and block transfer
of the September 11 suspects to New York.
U.S.
Attorney's Office spokesman Dean Boyd said the Justice Department "can
safely prosecute this case in the Southern District of New York while
minimizing disruptions to the community to the greatest extent
possible, consistent with security needs."
President Obama is "committed to seeing" Mohammed, the mastermind of the attacks "brought to justice," Burton said.
"Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed is a murderous thug who has admitted to crimes ... some
of the most heinous crimes ever committed against our country," he said.
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