Backlash may move Sept. 11 trial from NYC

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pressured by a growing clamor from New York, the Obama administration is considering moving the trial of Sept. 11 terror suspects away from Manhattan, where it had been scheduled to take place just blocks from the site of the twin-towers attack.

The city’s top police official says he thinks the trial won’t take place anywhere in the city.

The Justice Department is drawing up plans for possible alternate locations to try professed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four alleged accomplices in case Congress or local officials prevent the trial from taking place in Manhattan, two administration officials said Friday.

Though the officials wouldn’t discuss locations under consideration, others have suggested Governors Island, a former military base in New York Harbor that now welcomes summertime picnickers and bike riders; the U.S. Military Academy at West Point or Stewart Air National Guard Base in Newburgh, N.Y.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the deliberations.

New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters Friday that a backlash had made it “unlikely” the case would go forward in the city. He said plans to have the trial there started to unravel after a speech he gave recently detailing the enormous costs and logistical challenges of ensuring security at the Federal Courthouse in lower Manhattan.

Criticism of the plan, which had been announced by Attorney General Eric Holder last year, reached a crescendo this week when New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg reversed his earlier support. On his weekly radio show Friday, Bloomberg said he had spoken with “high level” people in the Obama administration about his concerns, and they were “trying to do something.”

New York Gov. David Paterson said he was “elated that our concerns are being considered by the president and the federal government.” He had said earlier this week that if the cases went forward in the city, “Every time there is a loud noise during the two years of those trials, it’s going to frighten people, and I think New Yorkers have been through enough.”

Moving the trial would be a setback for President Barack Obama. His administration has spent weeks defending its handling of terror threats after the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner, a case that reignited the debate about whether such terror suspects should face civilian or military justice.

Obama has long supported trying some terrorists in federal, civilian court, but Republicans have argued that terrorists — including the five alleged Sept. 11 conspirators — should be tried in military tribunals where other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be judged.