Friday, Nov. 06, 2009

Senate OKs civilian court

WASHINGTON -- The Senate defeated a bid to try Sept. 11 suspects only in front of military tribunals after an emotional debate that rekindled questions over how to keep Americans safe from further assault.

The Senate's 54-45 vote to reject the measure by Sen. Lindsey Graham opens the door for President Obama to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, to trial in civilian federal court.

Obama has pledged to shutter the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by January and transfer some of its 220 detainees to the United States for trials in civilian courts.

Three Democrats -- Sens. Jim Webb of Virginia, Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor, both of Arkansas -- and independent Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut joined all 40 Senate Republicans in voting to restrict the Sept. 11 trials to military commissions.

Graham, an S.C. Republican and a military lawyer who has served active duty in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, pleaded with his colleagues to back his amendment to a spending measure for the Justice Department and other federal agencies.

"Tell the president that we're not going to sit by as a body and watch the mastermind of 9/11 go into civilian court and criminalize this war," Graham said.

"If he goes to federal court, here's what awaits -- a chaos zoo trial."

Graham, who helped craft the 2009 Military Commissions Act, said he wants all the Guantanamo detainees to be tried before the tribunals. But he crafted his measure narrowly to focus on Mohammed and five other alleged Sept. 11 plotters at the Guantanamo prison.

"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed didn't rob a liquor store," Graham said.

"He took this nation to war, and he killed 3,000 of our innocent citizens."

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, said federal courts have convicted 195 felons of terrorism-related crimes since the 2001 attacks, while military tribunals have produced three convictions.

"The Graham amendment would be an unprecedented intrusion into the authority of the executive branch of our government to combat terrorism," Durbin said.

"To argue that we cannot successfully prosecute a terrorist in an American court is to ignore the truth and to ignore history."

The Supreme Court struck down the military commission system set up by President George W. Bush, and in a later ruling put restrictions on revamped tribunals that Congress had subsequently created.

Christopher Anders, senior legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, hailed the vote.

"Thankfully the Senate has made the right decision by not tying the president's hands when it comes to prosecuting detainees," Anders said.

"Making it more difficult to prosecute detainees in our federal courts only serves to delay bringing them to justice."