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White House still unsure where 9/11 trials will be held

The Obama administration doesn’t know yet where it’s going to try Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators, Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday, adding that New York is “not off the table.”

“No final decision has been made about the forum which Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-defendants will be tried. As I said at the outset, this is a very close call,” Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“New York is not off the table for where they would be tried, but we have to take into considerations that have been raised by local officials” and community groups,” he said.

SCHUMER: NO WAY TRIAL WILL BE IN NYC

The administration said a month ago that it would decide within weeks about a location. Holder repeated that time frame on Wednesday.

The decision to hold a trial in New York City drew strong opposition when it was proposed late last year, with Mayor Michael Bloomberg saying the cost for security and the imposition on New York residents, particularly those who live near the courthouse, is too severe.

Holder responded on Wednesday that the Southern District of New York is a much larger place than Manhattan, and other venues beyond New York are still in the consideration. He added that the administration “will use every tool available to it to fight terrorists, every tool. This includes civilian courts and military commissions.”

“In making this decision I can assure you this administration has only one paramount goal — to ensure that justice is done in this case,” he said.

In what was billed as a hearing sure to launch fireworks, Holder, whose been the target of criticism over the administration’s indecision on civilian trials and the closing of Guantanamo Bay military prison facility, earned a defense from Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who said she was bothered by questioning of the administration’s decision-making process,

Feinstein said the Bush administration, which tried 200 terror suspects in Article III, or civilian, courts, was never given challenged on its decisions where to hold its trials.

The administration should have “maximum flexibility as to which venues these defendants should be tried,” she said, adding that she has come to the conclusion the purpose of the attacks is to diminish Holder.

“You remain strong and make the decisions based on the legal facts and where we best get a conviction,” she told the attorney general.

On a separate but related matter, the attorney general acknowledged the difficulty in closing the Guantanamo Bay facility, where the remaining 200-plus detainees are being held.

Noting that Republican Sen. John McCain and former President George W. Bush supported closing Guantanamo, Holder said the administration still plans on closing Guantanamo Bay but couldn’t offer a timeframe. He said it will be done as “quickly as” and “soon as” it can.

While Republicans have not changed their mind on whether to close the military prison on Cuba — support is minimal, with Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., falling into that camp — Holder suggested support was falling for closing the prison.

“It is still the intention of this administration to close the facility at Guantanamo. There was and I think still is — maybe not to the degree that once existed — bipartisan support for the notion that the Guantanamo facility should be closed. It serves as a recruiting toll for those have sworn to harm this nation,” he said.

But Holder acknowledged that moving the prisoners elsewhere, for instance to Thompson prison in Thompson, Ill., “will require congressional support for the funding request we’ve made.”

On a separate matter, Holder said it’s “highly unlikely” Al Qaeda leader Usama bin Laden “will be taken alive” because he’s given instructions to his followers to kill him if he’s about to be captured.

“Our plan is to capture him or to kill him. Our hope would be to capture him and to interrogate him and to get useful intelligence from him about Al Qaeda’s structure and about Al Qaeda’s plans,” he said.

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