WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama said the September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other Guantanamo Bay detainees will be put on trial in New York City. Speaking in Tokyo, Mr. Obama said Mohammed, the self-proclaimed organiser of the al-Qaeda terrorist plot that killed almost 3,000 people in 2001, would face "exacting" US justice. Bringing such notorious suspects to US soil to face trial would be a key step in Mr. Obama's plan to close the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay. Mr. Obama initially planned to close the centre at the US naval base on Cuba by Jan 22 next year, but his administration is no longer expected to meet that deadline. It is also a major legal and political test of Mr. Obama's overall approach to terrorism. If the case suffers legal setbacks, the administration will face second-guessing from those who never wanted it in a civilian courtroom. The New York case may force the court system to confront a host of difficult legal issues surrounding counter-terrorism programmes begun after the 2001 attacks, including the harsh interrogation techniques once used on some of the suspects while in CIA custody. The most severe method - waterboarding, or simulated drowning - was used on Mohammed 183 times in 2003, before the practice was banned. The US attorney general Eric Holder is due to annonce that a major suspect in the bombing of the USS Cole, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, will face justice before a military commission, as will a handful of other detainees to be identified at the same announcement, an official said. The transfer of the detainees from Guantanamo to New York is not expected to happen for many more weeks because formal charges have not been filed against most of them.
BEIRUT: Thousands of people converged Saturday on central Beirut to mark the fourth anniversary of the assassination of Lebanese former premier Rafiq Hariri.Waving Lebanese flags and carrying pictures of the slain leader, men, women and children gathered under sunny skies in Martyr's Square where members of the parliamentary majority were to address the crowd. The rally comes as final preparations are underway in The Hague for the launch of the international tribunal set up to bring Hariri's killers to justice. It also comes as the country prepares for legislative elections in June that will pit Western-backed political parties against a Hezbollah-led alliance backed by Syria and Iran.Hariri died in a massive car bombing on February 14, 2005 that also killed 22 others. The assassination was widely blamed on then Lebanese power-broker Syria, which has denied any involvement. The attack on the Beirut seafront was one of the worst acts of political violence to rock Lebanon since t...
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