Execution 'likely' for 9/11 suspect

Source: Al Jazeera

The mayor of New York said the trial of suspected 9/11 plotters should be moved out of the city [AFP]

Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, has said the man accused of masterminding the September 11 attacks on the United States is likely to be executed following his trial.
"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ... will be brought to justice and he's likely to be executed for the heinous crimes he committed," Gibbs said in an interview with the CNN news network on Sunday.
John Terrett, Al Jazeera's Washington correspondent, said the comment has a lot to do with the first amendment of the US constitution which guarantees free speech.
"You see this all the time in the middle of a trial and in this case before a trial, people talk quite openly on television about a person’s guilt, politicians and prosecutors as well, they lay a case out against somebody live on TV.
"Seen from another jurisdiction [outside the US] this seems very odd. I think Robert Gibbs was technically wrong to talk in the way he did today because obviously the trial isn't under way and he does not know."
Trial location
Gibbs did not confirm reports that Barack Obama, the US president, had begun looking for places other than New York to prosecute Mohammed, and four men accused of being co-conspirators of the 2001 attacks, in the face of criticism over security and costs.
"We are talking with the authorities in New York. We understand their logistical concerns," Gibbs said.
"We will work with them and come to a solution that we think will bring about justice."
Critics have said the government's plan to try the suspects just blocks from where the World Trade Centre stood before the 2001 attacks, would require a large security cordon, hurt businesses in the area and give the defendants certain legal rights in criminal court.
On Saturday, Dean Boyd, a US justice department spokesman, said: "We're considering our options."
The New York Times and the Washington Post newspapers have both reported that the lower Manhattan courthouse is out of the running for the trial, citing unnamed administration officials.
Contingency options
"Conversations have occurred with the administration to discuss contingency options should the possibility of a trial in lower Manhattan be foreclosed upon by congress or locally," an Obama administration official was quoted as saying.
It was not clear what other venues are under consideration.
Al Jazeera's Terrett said originally New Yorkers and their mayor were behind the trial taking place there but over time they started to feel differently.
"Only last Wednesday Mayor Bloomberg said 'we don't want the trial'," Terrett said.
"Now you have towns like Newburgh which is in New York upstate from the city saying they would like it because it would bring business into their area.
"They could choose many of the military bases around the city, such as the military academy of West Point, north of New York. My understanding is that it would still be a civilian court convened on the military base."
One Obama administration official told the Reuters news agency that "no decision has been made" on the venue
Nearly 3,000 people were killed at the World Trade Centre, the Pentagon in Virginia and in a field in Pennsylvania during the co-ordinated attacks.