Military commission to try Sept. 11 suspect

WASHINGTON, April 4 (UPI) -- Five Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack defendants will be tried by the military rather than in a civilian court, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, self-described mastermind of the attacks, and four co-defendants will face charges before a military tribunal in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a Department of Justice release said.

The attorney general had originally planned to prosecute them in a civilian federal court in New York, but restrictions mandated by Congress on the transfer of prisoners from Guantanamo to the United States made that impossible, officials said.

"After consulting with prosecutors from both the Department of Justice and Department of Defense and after thoroughly studying the case, it became clear to me that the best venue for prosecution was in federal court. I stand by that decision today," Holder said.

The accused conspirators initially had been charged before a military commission at Guantanamo in the latter days of the George W. Bush administration, but their trial was cut short in January 2009 when President Obama froze all tribunal proceedings at Guantanamo to initiate a review of counter-terrorism policies.

Last month, the president announced his decision to resume military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.

White House press secretary Jay Carney, pressed about how the president, who officially announced his re-election bid Monday, will frame the change of direction in dealing with the Sept. 11 defendants when he had promised to shut down Gitmo and end the tribunals, told reporters Obama's "primary concern here is that the perpetrators, the accused perpetrators of that terrible attack on the American people, be brought to justice as swiftly as possible and as fairly as possible."