The strength of our convictions: Why America must not fear bringing the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks to justice
Source: silive
By Michael W. Dominowski
November 18, 2009, 1:09PM
THE CRIME: The Statue of Liberty is silhouetted against smoke and dust from the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. The fires burned for 100 days. The attacks there, and at the Pentagon and aboard the four hijacked airliners left 2,976 innocent people dead.
Wednesday, November 25, marks the 96th anniversary of the founding of the Irish Republican Army. The occurrence, on that Tuesday afternoon in 1913, was, in simplified terms, a Catholic response to the yoke of British and Protestant dominance. Known then as the “Irish Volunteers,” the group trained itself in military matters in preparation for the Easter Rising, three years later. The rising was an insurrection aimed at ending British rule and establishing an independent Irish republic. The rebellion was put down after a week of warfare and its leaders were hanged. That was hardly the end of the matter. The Irish Republican Army would battle the British for decades to come.
The lessons learned by the British in their handling of the rebellion, over the years, are relevant today as America prepares to put the notorious terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted mastermind of the attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, on trial in the heart of Manhattan.
Terrorism hits home
THE SUSPECT: Khalid Sheikh Momammed is shown shortly after his 2003 arrest in Pakistan. Mohammed openly boasts of being the mastermind of numerous terror attacks, including the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the September 11, 2001 attacks.
It was about midday on Friday, February 26, 1993, when a member of an America-hating Islamic terrorist group parked a rented truck fitted with a complex bomb in the parking garage under the North Tower of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. The Twin Towers were perhaps the most visible symbols of America’s power and authority, but they were not the terrorists’ first choice as a target. The bombers had intended to attack the United Nations building on Manhattan’s East Side, but may have found security was too tight. So the driver, Eyad Ismoil, headed for the WTC instead.
The truck, laden with more than 1,300 pounds of explosives and bottles of compressed gas, was to be the vehicle that would destroy the hated symbol in a spectacle for the world to witness. For all its sophistication, the bomb was triggered by a redundant series of fuses encased in surgical tubing, and dynamite. Ismoil opened the back of the truck, lit the four fuses, closed the door and departed. Some 12 minutes later the bomb exploded. The towers did not fall, as the terrorists had hoped, but six people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured.
The mighty are fearlessly laid low
His years as a U.S. attorney gave Rudy Giuliani considerable experience in handling high-profile prosecutions. Bringing larcenous Wall Street financiers such as Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken to justice drew headlines but not much in the way of security risk. Security was tighter when Giuliani went gangbuster, taking on a string of top-level organized crime bosses. He put away such Mob luminaries as Anthony “Fat Tony” Salerno, Anthony “Tony Ducks” Corallo and Philip “Rusty” Rastelli. He would have gotten a couple more, but Aniello Dellacroce died of cancer on December 2, 1985, and his fellow Staten Islander, “Big Paul” Castellano was murdered outside a Manhattan steakhouse two weeks later.
Forbidden Zone
From the outside it doesn’t look remarkable, but, as Rudy Giuliani well knows, the Metropolitan Correction Center in Manhattan is without equal. It is probably the only high-rise building in the city where the doormen are sometimes armed with machine guns. A prisoner brought to the facility effectively disappears from public view. You don’t get into the place, or out of it, unless the authorities allow it.
The MCC is conveniently located across the street from the federal courthouse. The buildings are connected via a secure underground tunnel - the route along which shackled prisoners are led when they head to their court appearances.
There is probably no more secure prison-court complex in the world.
The federal prison is situated in the heart of a forbidden zone between City Hall and Chinatown, just north of the Brooklyn Bridge. The zone includes an assortment of courthouses and related buildings, and 1 Police Plaza, the fortified headquarters of the NYPD. The Google Maps Street View car has never visited the area. You cannot even walk through the zone unescorted, let alone drive there. The zone is ringed with security cameras and barricades and guards. Whatever the color-coded alert may be elsewhere, in the zone it is always red.
The American Way
There is a branch of philosophy called “jurisprudence.” It has to do with the laws and principles that lead the courts to make the decisions they do. American jurisprudence has evolved from a mixture of constitutional requirements, law, tradition and precedent; a sense of fairness and, importantly, experience.
Our jurisprudence says prisoners should, to the extent possible, be tried and incarcerated near to where their crimes were committed. The practice allows for changes of venue in cases where security is a concern or when conducting a fair trial may be difficult. Holding trials in remote or obscure, or even secret locations may be regarded as inherently unfair, and that could affect the outcome. Important as that principled stand is to the American concept of justice, it can make prosecution of high-profile cases, such as the upcoming trial of terrorist Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, more difficult or even dangerous enough to warrant a change of venue. Difficult, yes, but it is the American way.
Power of a title
International law allowed the Allies to try the World War II Nazi chieftains in military tribunals at Nuremberg under terms of the Geneva Conventions, and to hang Japan’s war-mongering Prime Minister Hideki Tojo as a war criminal. The issue becomes more complicated when terrorist thugs are branded “enemy combatants.” They may proclaim themselves to be at war, but they are part of no recognized government and therefore do not qualify for protection or any more special treatment than a garden-variety gunman would be eligible for. The difference is only a matter of scale.
In nearly a century of battling the Irish Republican Army, there were some lessons the British had to learn the hard way. Captured IRA members demanded to be regarded either as prisoners of war or political prisoners and they used every publicity-grabbing tactic to win that status.
Britain’s problem with that was embedded in the Geneva Conventions, a series of treaties and agreements, some dating to the late 19th century, which spell out how such prisoners must be treated. For example, prisoners of war cannot be forced to wear prison uniforms and must be housed with others of their status. They must be accorded certain other rights, and be allowed packages and visits by humanitarian groups. Civilian prisoners receive no such privileges.
The greatest privilege of all would be the legitimacy “prisoner of war” status would confer. The British regarded the IRA rebels, who styled themselves as freedom fighters, as a band of armed thugs and treated them as common criminals. Unrest in the prisons eventually prompted Britain to experiment, in 1972, by giving its IRA inmates “special category” treatment. It effectively granted them the coveted prisoner-of-war status without actually declaring as much.
The change was disastrous. The IRA inmates, housed together and freed from the routine other prisoners were required to adhere to, soon began quite literally ruling Maze Prison. Their “special category” undermined prison staff’s authority and made the facility ungovernable, except by the prisoners. Within four years the experiment ended in failure. The special category was revoked (which led to fierce rioting inside the prison). IRA prisoners have been treated as common criminals ever since.
Why all the commotion?
THE TRIAL: The old federal courthouse in Manhattan has been the scene of many high-profile trials, including those of the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 and of Zacharias Mouusaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker" in the 9/11 attacks.
There’s nothing new about trying terrorists in New York City.
It was 1994 when the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center a year earlier were brought to trial in New York City, just blocks from City Hall. Rudy Giuliani, the hard-nosed prosecutor, had since become mayor.
The biggest fish in the barrel was Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s nephew and the ringleader of the group, who proudly declared to the court that was a terrorist. There was Mohammed A. Salameh, who rented the truck and then reported it stolen. He had the cheek to ask the rental company for his money back. Other participants were Mahmud Abouhalima, Ahmed Ajaj; sightless Omer Abdel Rahman (known as “the blind sheik) and of course Eyad Ismoil the truck driver.
The terrorists were charged not with the bombing or the deaths and injuries their actions caused, but with “seditious conspiracy.” A conviction requires only proof that their crime was planned. A conviction could be obtained even if they had not attempted to carry out the plot.
There were no hand-wringing calls from the talking-head theaters to hold the trials elsewhere. They attacked us and we were going to hold them to account. There were no circuses or spectacles or paparazzi antics or courtroom theatrics (though at least one of the lawyers for the defense gave it a try); and there was no violence. It turned out the trials went largely unnoticed by the general public.
As for the accused: They were all convicted and are quietly serving sentences in federal prisons, in which they will someday die. There is no possibility any of them will ever be paroled.
Master terrorists strikes again
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THE PUNISHMENT: The forbidding ADX Supermax federal prison near Florence, Colorado, is one of the high-security facilities where America's most dangerous convicts are held. Most supermax inmates will never see another day of freedom.
Public memory of the trials had faded by the time Khalid Sheikh Mohammed tried again, this time on September 11, 2001. From a tactical standpoint, the attacks of that day were a spectacular success, even if they were a strategic disaster for the cause of Islam. The Pentagon was heavily damaged and the Twin Towers were destroyed, along with four airliners, 19 hijackers and the lives of 2,976 innocent victims, nationals of more than 90 countries.
Not aboard any of the planes was Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. He was a flight-school flunk-out. His boss, Khalid Sheikh Momammed, considered him untrustworthy, a clown who couldn't shut up and follow orders. Moussaoui, who was considered a criminal, not an “enemy combatant,” had trained for the attacks and was indicted on December 11, 2001. His trial drew no public alarm or fears of retaliation. Instead it dragged interminably on, partly because the Bush Administration wanted Moussaoui executed, and there was doubt the charges merited capital punishment. Ultimately the jury refused to return a sentence of death.
Moussaoui helped salvage the case for the prosecution by acting as his own lawyer and by his sometimes bizarre performance in court. After maintaining his innocence for a time, Moussaoui finally admitted his guilt and acknowledged he was indeed a member of al-Qaida. He later said he was surprised that the trial he received was, in fact, fair.
He was sentenced on May 4, 2006. On his way out of the courtroom for the last time, Moussaoui clapped his hands and boasted "America, you lost... I won." Judge Leonie Brinkema replied that Moussaoui would "die with a whimper" and "never get a chance to speak again." Moussaoui's next stop was the Federal ADX Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado, where he is serving life without parole.
IN THE SHADOW OF FEAR
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the highest ranking terrorist in U.S. custody, has been an unwilling guest of the United States of America since 2003, whiling away the years in the American military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has made no secret of the claim that he is both the mastermind and finance minister for both of the World Trade Center attacks.
Some fear that bringing him to trial in the place where his crime was committed is too fraught with risks, not the least of which may be the perceived vagaries of the American justice system. The wary go hyperbolically hypothetical, asking “what if” as a way of arguing against holding the trial here. What if there are demonstrations? What if there are courtroom antics? What if secrets must be revealed? What if the trial attracts suicide bombers? “What if terrorists kidnap Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s daughter?”
What if an asteroid strikes the Earth and renders the whole matter moot? As the adage goes, anything is possible.
For his part, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, a tough cop if ever there was one, is unfazed by the commotion raised by the fearful and the political hay-makers. Kelly, who was also Giuliani’s police commissioner, is plain-spoken about what is to come: "We've handled high profile events, certainly high profile trials in the past, and we'll be able to do it," he said.
One fear that can probably be put safely to rest is that Mohammed will be let off the hook because he was waterboarded during his stay at Guantanamo. Evidence obtained by torture is inadmissible in a civilian court. It is true that he was subjected to that form of controlled drowning and it is possible he spilled any amount of information or claims, some of it perhaps useful. We don’t know and probably will not find out, because it won’t be part of his trial. Mohammed, who is in his mid-40s, will likely face a wide array of charges, some of the sort that sent his minions to prison and anonymity for the rest of their days. He’s almost certain to share their fate.
What we must do
Instances of serious terrorism such as the 1993 WTC bombing and the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City by homegrown terrorist Timothy McVeigh and the 1990s reign of terror by Theodore “Unabomber” Kaczynski have happened before. We have probably not seen the last of such things, no matter how we handle the Mohammed trial.
We have already ceded far too much ground to the terrorist tactic, closing parts of our society in unprecedented ways, looking upon one another with suspicion and trading some of our hard-won freedom for the illusion of security.
Some of those fair-weather patriots who thumped their chests and proclaimed “These colors don’t run” when the American flag was carried into Kabul and Baghdad now do not wish to deal with a wholly foreseeable, if uncomfortable, aspect of the war’s success. With a key terrorism trial now planned, their bravado has begun to falter. Egged on by political fear-mongers, they are the ones now ready to cut and run as they engage in a kind of NIMBY-ism, demanding the upcoming terrorism trial be held anywhere but here.
No. America is a nation of laws and a proud system of jurisprudence that sets a standard for the world to aspire to. Maintaining that standard sometimes requires courage. This is one of those times. The most heinous of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s crimes was committed here in New York City. It is here he must be brought to the dock of justice and the world will be shown that the United States of America does not cower before the threats of bullies.
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Michael W. Dominowski is the editor of Perspective.
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