By Susan Crabtree - 11/18/09 11:13 AM ET
Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday vigorously defended his decision to try five terrorist suspects in federal criminal courts, arguing New York City is the venue “most likely to obtain justice for the American people.”
Holder vowed that the U.S. would not surrender to fear or politics in seeking justice in federal court for the alleged Sept. 11 plotters.
“We need not cower in the face of this enemy,” Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee at a packed hearing. “Our institutions are strong, our infrastructure is sturdy, our resolve is firm and our people are ready.”
Holder’s testimony marks the first time senators have had a chance to question him publicly since the Department of Justice last week announced it would try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind behind the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other suspects now held at Guantánamo Bay. Holder testified that he expected the Guantánamo Bay facility to be closed sometime next year.
Republicans on the panel grilled Holder over the decision, which they said could allow a detainee to be released on a technicality within the U.S.
Several Republicans have also argued the trials will hand terrorism suspects the high-profile public attention they crave and make Manhattan a target.
“We are making bad history here,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a military lawyer and primary author of legislation creating military commissions to try detainees.
Graham said Holder was jeopardizing national security by determining that wartime combatants, potentially even Osama bin Laden, could be given constitutional legal protections usually provided only to U.S. citizens and foreigners convicted of regular crimes, not acts of war.
“The big problem I have is that you’re criminalizing the war … I think you’ve made a fundamental mistake here,” Graham said.
Holder delivered a point-by-point rebuttal to his critics. The defendants could be tried in either military or civilian court, he said, because the Sept. 11 attacks were both an act of war and a violation of federal criminal law.
He defended the record of civilian courts in handling international and domestic terrorists, and argued Mohammed would have no more of a platform to “spew his hateful ideology” in a civilian court in Manhattan than he has already done in a pre-trial hearings in the military courts.
“I’m not scared of what Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has to say at trial, and no one else needs to be afraid either,” Holder said, adding that he was certain that judges would maintain courtroom decorum.
source: http://thehill.com//homenews/administration/68345-holder-we-need-not-cower-in-the-face-of-this-enemy
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