WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- U.S. President Barack Obama made the right decision moving to try key Sept. 11, 2001, terror figures in civilian criminal court, a senior senator says.
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation" that Obama's move to have self-avowed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other terror suspects placed on trial in a federal court in Manhattan will show the world the United States is not afraid of terrorists.
"I think that Eric Holder, our attorney general, is right; I think the president is right in holding the trials of these murderers in New York City," Leahy told CBS. "What we're saying to the world is, the United States acts out of strength, not out of fear."
Disagreeing was U.S. Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich.
"We're going to go back into New York City, the scene of the tragedy on 9/11," Hoekstra told "Face the Nation." "We're now going to rip that wound wide open, and it's going to stay open for, what -- two, three, four years, as we go through the circus of a trial in New York City?"
