Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement to bring Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a New York City courthouse has been met with mixed reactions by families of Sept. 11 victims.
Many of the victims' relatives were dismayed by the idea of a civilian trial for terror suspects. Others said the trial would give supply a platform for the terrorists to vent anti-American hatred and invective.
Ed Kowalski, of the 9/11 Families for a Secure America Foundation, told the AP, "To allow a terrorist and a war criminal the opportunity of having U.S. constitutional protections is a wrong thing to do and it’s never been done before. President Obama is wrong to do this."
"If we have to bring them to the United States, New York City is not the place to have it, let alone in a courthouse that is in the shadows of the twin towers," Lee Ielpi, whose firefighter son died in the 9/11 attacks, said. The city's wounds, he said, are simply still too raw.
"Ripping that scab open will create a tremendous hardship," he said.
But Lorie Van Auken, whose husband Kenneth was killed in the World Trade Center attacks, voiced support for the decision, saying the trials would help to bring closure.
"I'm glad to hear they are going to be brought to New York to the scene of the crime and giving the families that were affected the chance to actually watch the trial," Van Auken told Reuters.
Comments
There are two revealing facts to these trials.
1: these five are pleading guilty, whereas the detainees who testify their “confessions” were tortured out of them are being given military tribunals rather than trials (with the tribunal selected by the same executive branch making the accusations). Google: The Real Reason Only Five Detainees Are Coming to New York?
2: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s sons were captured by the CIA. Do they still have them as motivation to plead guilty? Google Do We Still Have Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's Sons?
About half the families of NYC victims do not believe the government’s self-study of what happened on 9/11; they conclude the US government was complicit in the attack. Google: Who are 9/11 Truthers? What is the 9/11 Truth Movement?
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