Five suspects, including the alleged mastermind of the 11 September attacks, will be transferred from Guantanamo Bay to the US mainland for trial in civilian court, reports Tamam Ahmed Jama One of the highest profile terrorism trials in America will take place in New York City, just a few blocks from Ground Zero, the site where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood. The Attorney-General Eric Holder announced earlier this month that the alleged mastermind of the 11 September attacks, Khaled Sheikh Mohamed, and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be moved to the US mainland for trial in a civilian federal court. Mohamed is considered to be one of the most senior members of the Al-Qaeda terrorist network. The Kuwaiti- born 45-year-old was arrested in Pakistan in March 2003 and was held for years in "CIA black sites", secret detention centres operated by the Central Intelligence Agency where terrorism suspects were held for interrogation. He was transferred, along with 13 other so- called "high-value" detainees, to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006. Mohamed was finally charged in February 2008 by a military commission at Guantanamo Bay with war crimes and murder, including 2,973 counts of murder -- one count for each victim killed in the 11 September attacks. According to the Pentagon, Mohamed admitted to planning, "from A to Z", the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Yet his trial may still prove controversial. Intelligence memos released earlier this year revealed that while he was held in secret locations run by the CIA, Mohamed was repeatedly subjected to what the Bush administration characterised as "harsh interrogation techniques" but generally regarded as torture. These include a technique known as waterboarding, which involves immersing detainees in water to make them believe that they are drowning. According to the intelligence memos, Mohamed was waterboarded a total of 183 times in the month he was captured alone. In February 2008, CIA director Michael Hayden admitted at a Senate hearing that the agency had used waterboarding on Mohamed. Shortly after his transfer to Guantanamo Bay, he told the International Committee of the Red Cross: "I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear." In a September article in The New York Times, "What Torture Never Told Us", former FBI special agent Ali Soufan writes, "Supporters of the enhanced interrogation techniques have jumped from claim to claim about their usefulness. They have asserted, for example, that harsh treatment led Recently, interviews with unnamed sources led The Washington Post to report that harsh techniques turned Mr Mohamed into an intelligence 'asset'". The Bush administration refused to accept that some of the harsh interrogation techniques it was using to glean intelligence from terrorism suspects, such as waterboarding, were forms of torture illegal under international law. Upon assuming office, President Barack Obama immediately banned the harsh interrogation techniques and Holder has recently stated, categorically, that waterboarding is torture. It remains to be seen how much of the evidence against Mohamed, based on confessions apparently made under duress, a civilian court will regard as admissible evidence. Mohamed and the other four suspects, who are accused of helping to plan and finance the 11 September attacks, face the death penalty. Political reaction to the civilian trial on the US mainland of the 11 September suspects has been more or less along party lines, with some senior Republicans condemning the move and Democrats praising it as a sound decision. Reaction from the victims' families has also been mixed, with some members voicing opposition and others welcoming it. The September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows expressed support for the trial in federal court of the 11 September suspects. "Each of us lost a loved one in those attacks," the group said in a statement. "We are dedicated to true justice... In open and transparent court, we will again show the world who we are: a fair and just people. Family members, many of whom reside in or near New York, will be able to choose to see the proceedings, as will the whole world, and attest to the fairness of the process." Rights groups have also welcomed the decision to try 11 September suspects in civilian courts. Human Rights Watch said in a statement, "These historic proceedings must be fair -- and be perceived as fair -- and their verdicts must be viewed as credible. By moving them to federal court and out of the ad hoc, chaotic, and discredited military commissions at Guantanamo, the administration has taken a crucial step toward ensuring that the results of the trial will be recognised as legitimate." The attorney-general also announced that another five of the Guantanamo Bay detainees will face trial by military commissions. These include Abdel-Rahim Al-Nashiri, a Saudi national accused of planning the 2000 bombing of the navy destroyer USS Cole off value terrorism suspects that the CIA acknowledged were waterboarded. Immediately after his inauguration, Obama halted all proceedings before the controversial military commissions at Guantanamo Bay, created by the Bush administration in 2006. A modified version, the Military Commissions Act 2009, has recently been re-introduced, with significant improvements upon the Bush-era system. But, according to Human Rights Watch, the "reformed" military commissions system "still departs, in fundamental ways, from the fair trial procedures used in US federal courts and courts martial." Human Rights Watch warns that any trial before the revised military commissions "will carry the stigma of Guantanamo". One of President Obama's first acts in office was a pledge to close Guantanamo Bay within a year. The president has recently acknowledged that the January deadline will be missed. There are still 215 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, which once held nearly 800 men. About 90 of the remaining detainees have been cleared for release and there are fears that some may face further ill-treatment if sent to their homelands. The US has been lobbying countries in the European Union to take some of the detainees to speed up the process of closing the camp. A number of EU countries, including Ireland, Germany, Portugal and Sweden, have said they will take some of the men. Reports have suggested that US authorities intend to hold indefinitely, probably in maximum security prisons on the mainland, detainees for which there is not enough presentable evidence to bring to trial but who are considered to be too dangerous for release. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) expressed disappointment that the January deadline for closing Guantanamo Bay will be missed and cautioned the Obama administration against any further indefinite detention of the men held at the notorious offshore US military prison in Cuba. "Guantanamo will continue to be a stain on our reputation for as long as it remains open, and it should be closed as soon as possible," ACLU's Executive Director Anthony Romero said. "With the closure of Guantanamo must also come the end of the policies that the prison stands for, including unlawful indefinite detention without charge or trial. After seven and a half years of indefinite detention without due process, any Guantanamo detainee the government lacks the evidence to prosecute in federal court should be repatriated or transferred to a country where he won't be tortured." the coast of Yemen in which 17 American sailors died. Like Mohamed, Al-Nashiri is also among a few so-called high-Mr Mohamed to reveal the plot to attack the Library Tower in Los Angeles. But that plot was thwarted in 2002, and Mr Mohamed was not arrested until 2003.
