Yesterday Attorney General Eric Holder told House lawmakers that the decision of where and how to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, is “weeks away.”

Holder’s decision to try Mohammed in a civilian criminal court in New York has faced increased criticism, with Republican lawmakers and some Democrats arguing that terror suspects should not receive the same rights afforded to those tried in civilian courtrooms. Earlier this month White House advisers reportedly recommended to President Barack Obama that Mohammed be tried before a military tribunal.

But Holder defended his decision to push for a civilian court trial yesterday.

“They are tested … they are secure, we have tried these cases in a safe manner,” Holder told a House Appropriations subcommittee according to Reuters. “Our allies around the world support us in bringing these cases in (criminal) courts.”

In answering a lawmaker’s question of whether Osama bin Laden would be Mirandized and tried in a civilian court, Holder said that would never happen because bin Laden would likely be killed. “We would be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden,” Holder said.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 7:31 am and is filed under Congress, Department of Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.