| The choice for a trial location has been made in an extremely shortsighted manner," Rep. Nydia Velazquez (D., N.Y.) said in a Thursday letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. "The current plan would create a fortress-like perimeter around the courthouse," she wrote, including two large apartment buildings housing thousands of residents. "Their homes would be surrounded by metal barriers" She wrote that area residents would face traffic congestion and "random stops and searches" by police, she wrote.
Administration officials wouldn't rule out moving the trial away from New York entirely. The wide-ranging nature of the attacks—which saw planes hijacked in Boston and Newark, N.J., and crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., and a field in Shanksville, Pa.—gives the Justice Department some discretion over where to file charges.
"Obviously the concerns of local officials are significant, and are being considered. But no decisions have been made," said White House senior adviser David Axelrod.
In a joint letter, several New York officials, including members of Congress and the New York City Council, asked the Justice Department to review "all potentially viable trial sites within the Southern District of New York."
Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, the city's No. 2 elected official and one of the signatories, suggested the U.S. Military Academy at West Point or Stewart Air National Guard Base in New Windsor as possible locations.
"Clearly we are the heart of the matter. This is where the most important crime occurred and this is the location the world associates with that day," Mr. de Blasio said. "The mistake was to put it a little too literally at the immediate scene of the crime."
While the New York officials endorsed a federal prosecution for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, and his alleged co-conspirators in civilian federal court, some urged President Barack Obama to continue the trial before a military commission, which already held some pretrial proceedings at Guantanamo Bay.
"Moving the trial to some other federal courthouse will only introduce the same dangers and costs to the citizens living where the trial is being held," said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.).
Mr. Holder announced the plans to hold the trial in lower Manhattan on Nov. 13. New York City's deputy police commissioner, Paul Browne, said his department and the mayor's office learned of the plans only that day.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly began planning and concluded that it would cost about $215 million for the first year and $200 million in subsequent years to provide security, according to Mr. Browne. The main cost was overtime, not just at the site but all around the city to cope with an anticipated rise in threats.
Mr. Browne said the department hadn't heard from Washington about whether the federal government would cover security costs. A Justice official didn't respond to requests for comment on that point.
A key Democratic senator, Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein of California on Friday added her voice to those of Republicans warning that a lower Manhattan trial was a security risk. In a letter to Mr. Obama, she said the attempted bombing of an airliner Christmas Day showed that al Qaeda is still trying to strike the U.S. |
