DREXEL HILL, PA – Former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Pat Meehan today criticized reports that the Administration is drafting plans that could result in trials of the professed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on the United States and his accomplices in Western Pennsylvania.
 
The reports come amid growing opposition to existing plans to hold civilian trials for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four co-defendants in downtown Manhattan.  On Friday, New York Governor David Paterson and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg expressed their disapproval for holding the trials in Manhattan, citing security costs to the state and city in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
 
“As a former U.S. Attorney, I strongly maintain that the correct forum for the trial of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his confederates is a military tribunal,” said Meehan.  “They will be afforded appropriate due process at a secure facility offshore.  The Administration has already designated other participants for trial by military tribunals, underscoring the legitimacy of the process.”   
 
“It is wrong to be removing a mastermind enemy combatant like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed from foreign soil and provide him with the same rights provided to American citizens under the Constitution,” said Meehan.  “Trying these individuals in civilian court gives them unnecessary access to investigative information and the capacity to try and suppress legitimate evidence that will be used against them.  Why?  These are not American citizens, they are terrorists and they want to kill us.”
 
“These individuals committed an act of war against the United States – an act of war that claimed the lives of thousands of innocent people.  They should be treated as war criminals and tried in military court,” said Meehan.  “Congress and the American people should renew their calls for the Administration to reverse its greatly misguided decision to prosecute these war criminals in civilian court.”
According to a report today in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Administration officials have confirmed that the Obama Administration is preparing plans to move the trials out of the professed 9/11 mastermind and his accomplices to another location outside of Manhattan.  As the article notes:  “The Sixth Amendment dictates that civilian trials for the suspects must be held in one of the areas where planes crashed Sept. 11, 2001, according to Bruce Antkowiak, a law professor at Duquesne University. That leaves the Southern District of New York, the Eastern District of Virginia -- the location of the Pentagon -- or the Western District of Pennsylvania, which includes Somerset County, where United Flight 93 crashed.”

“Officials in New York have expressed concerns about the safety and security of the public – and the cost to taxpayers associated with holding such a civilian trial in New York City,” said Meehan.  “Even if you ignore the poor judgment of providing these terrorists with a public forum to express their hatred of America, I find it difficult to understand why holding a trial in Western Pennsylvania would be any safer or less costly to taxpayers than holding a trial in New York City.”