Results tagged “terrortrial”

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder made a "surprise" visit to the federal courthouse and the Manhattan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan yesterday. Apparently he wanted to check out the digs—and the security—in advance of trying suspected 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and others.

Here's an interesting sidenote to the upcoming trials of five suspected 9/11 plotters — there could turn out being an awkward family reunion in the Manhattan courthouse between one of the accused terrorists and his ex-wife, who also happens to be charged with "trying to kill American soldiers and FBI agents in Afghanistan," according to the Times.

Some retirees kill time between Canasta games by moping around the house feeling sorry for themselves, but not former Vice President Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney. He swung by the Fox News clubhouse yesterday with some words of wisdom for our current President, calling his decision to let alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed go on trial in New York a "huge mistake." Obama should take his advice to heart, because if there's one thing Cheney's an expert on, it's huge mistakes terrorism:

Hundreds of demonstrators protested Saturday against the plan to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other suspected 9/11 plotters in a Manhattan civilian court. The protesters rallied in Foley Square in front of the federal court complex, arguing that the accused terrorists should not be transferred to New York from Guantanamo Bay, and that their fates should be decided in military tribunals.

In a court case that might turn out closely foreshadowing the much-hyped trials of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four other suspected 9/11 plotters, terror suspect Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani has asked a Manhattan judge to dismiss his indictment because authorities denied him his constitutional right to a speedy trial.

The man or woman responsible for presiding over the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other suspected plotters of the 9/11 attacks will likely be chosen with the kind of machine that "might have been used to call out bingo numbers in a church fund-raiser," according to the Times. The 20-some active Manhattan federal court judges — as well as a few who are on senior status — will have their names put into a lottery machine to determine who will preside over the high profile case, which could last years, and will likely result in the assignment of around the clock security the rest of the judge's life.

Opponents of the Obama administration's plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists in New York City will hold a Dec. 5 rally in front of the federal courthouse to demand that the trials take place elsewhere, according to the Daily News. "This is perhaps the most dangerous decision any President and any attorney general have ever made," said Rep. Pete King (R-Nassau), who publicized the event alongside a new group called 9/11 Families for a Safe and Strong America.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the four other suspected terrorists who will be tried in Manhattan for their involvement in planning the 9/11 attacks will plead not guilty, according to an attorney. Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer representing suspect Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the attacks, but "would explain what happened and why they did it" and share "their assessment of American foreign policy," according to the Post. Unsurprisingly, "their assessment is negative," according to Fenstermaker.

The majority of New Yorkers want to see Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists put to death, according to a study by Marist and the Daily News. If found guilty, 73 percent of locals want Mohammed to be executed, while 67 percent of New Yorkers support the death penalty for the other suspects, the poll reveals.

The furor over holding the trials of alleged 9/11 terror plotters in a Manhattan federal court continues to simmer. Yesterday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, "I’m not scared of what [terror mastermind] Khalid Sheik Mohammed has to say at trial — and no one else needs to be either."

Yesterday, a federal appeals court panel of three judges upheld the conviction of lawyer Lynne Stewart for smuggling messages from a radical leader to his followers in Egypt. And the panels also thinks a judge should consider increasing her prison time from the 28 month sentence that was already handed down.

While the majority of Americans aren't happy with the plan to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists in New York City, more New Yorkers support the plan than oppose it, according to two new studies. Based on findings from a nationwide phone survey by Rasmussen Reports, 51 percent of Americans think it's a bad idea to host the trials in the city, while 29 percent of respondents favor the proposal to move the suspects from Guantanamo Bay to Lower Manhattan.

A Republican Arizona Congressman who opposes the plan to hold the trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists in Manhattan asked Mayor Bloomberg how he would feel if his daughter was "kidnapped at school by a terrorist." Though Bloomberg's daughters — Emma, 30, and Georgina, 26 — are well past school age, Rep. John Shadegg raised the question on the House floor on Monday while trashing a decision he described as "political correctness run amok."

A day after voicing his opposition to plans to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists in New York, Gov. David Paterson backtracked from those statements and blamed the press for sensationalizing his remarks. "We don't need to spend a lot of time on this," he said. "The decision is made. That's the president's decision. We're Americans. We will follow the decision and we'll trust the President."

While former mayor Rudy Giuliani continued to blast plans to host the trials of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspected terrorists in New York City, the Daily Show went after some seemingly hypocritical comments the likely gubernatorial candidate made just three years ago.

Former mayor Rudy Giuliani made the talk show rounds this morning to denounce the Obama administration's decision to try five accused 9/11 plotters—including mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—in New York City's federal court. On Fox News Sunday, Giuliani said the White House was "repeating the mistake of history" and had reverted to a "pre-9/11 approach... What the Obama administration is telling us loud and clear is that both in substance and reality, the War on Terror from their point of view is over. [Mohammad] should be tried in a military tribunal. He is a war criminal. This is an act of war."