By IANS,
Washington : Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sep 11, 2001 terror attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in a federal court in New York City, the New York Times reported Friday.
But the Obama administration will prosecute Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri – the detainee accused of planning the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen – and several other detainees before a military commission, it said citing an unnamed federal law enforcement official.
The decisions to give civilian prosecutors detainees accused of the 2001 terrorist attacks and keep the case of the Cole attack within the military system are expected to be announced at the Department of Justice later Friday by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
Mohammed, a person of Pakistani origin born in Kuwait, and the four other suspects accused of helping organise the Sep 11 plot – Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Waleed bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, and Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi – had been facing potential death sentences if convicted of the charges the Bush administration had brought against them in military commissions before the Obama administration froze those proceedings.
It was not clear what charges they would now face in civilian court, the Times said. It was also not immediately clear where the military commission trials would take place, the daily said.