Lindsey Graham moves to block Obama from trying 9/11 suspects in U.S.

[babylonsister]

Graham moves to block Obama from trying 9/11 suspects in U.S.

By James Rosen | McClatchy Newspapers


WASHINGTON -- Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is trying to prevent the Obama administration from holding criminal trials in civilian courts for the alleged Sept. 11 plotters instead of bringing them before military commissions.

Graham, who helped craft the 2006 law that established the military commissions, said Friday that he'd attached an amendment to an appropriations bill that would prohibit the Obama administration from spending money on the prosecution and trial of the accused terrorists before U.S. civilian federal judges.

"Khalid Sheik Mohammed needs to be tried in a military tribunal," Graham said. "He's not a common criminal. He took up arms against the United States."

Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is being held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, along with four other alleged plotters of the jetliner strikes that killed nearly 3,000 Americans.

The Obama administration is studying whether the plotters should be brought to the U.S. to face trial. Jeh C. Johnson, the Defense Department's general counsel, told the Senate Armed Forces Committee in July that the administration preferred trying some of the Guantanamo detainees in civilian courts, but hadn't decided where to hold trials for the accused 9/11 plotters.

"It is the administration view that when you direct violence on innocent civilians in the continental United States, it may be appropriate that that person be brought to justice in a civilian public forum in the continental United States," Johnson said then.

Federal prosecutors in at least four different U.S. attorneys' offices in Virginia and New York are vying to bring the alleged Sept. 11 conspirators to court for what would be among the most high-profile criminal trials in the nation's history.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/76933.html

[ixion]

1. Graham is another one of those who belongs in the Hague

Terrorism is a criminal act, not a military action.

[annabanana]

2. Watching him & Lieberman skulk around the MidEast together

makes me very suspicious of their involvement with the worst of our abuses during that black time. I think that any in depth investigation of the torture issue, including who knew what, and when, would implicate BOTH of these slimebuckets.

[malaise]

3. They are both war criminals

That is all

[lamp_shade]

4. And what makes him think his amendment would pass I wonder.

[HamdenRice]

5. One of the results of Graham's tactics is it keeps the complainophile beckleft angry at Obama

and they fall right into his trap.

[NNN0LHI]

6. This is because Lindsey knows what we did to these people and it will all come out

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/08/iraq/main616338.shtml

May 7, 2004

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told reporters, "The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. we're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience." He did not elaborate.