Main September 11 suspects to be tried in New York court (1st Lead)

Nov 13, 2009, 14:24 GMT

A handout photo obtained 01 March 2003, showing Al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed shortly after his capture, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. EPA/HANDOUT

Washington - The US Justice Department was to announce Friday that the main suspect in the September 11, 2001 attacks will be tried before a US civilian court, National Public Radio reported.

The alleged terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as well as four additional accomplices, are currently being held in the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention camp on Cuba.

They were originally to be prosecuted by a military commission ordered by former president George W Bush. President Barack Obama, who is trying to close Guantanamo, had put the commissions on hold.

'This is a prosecutorial decision as well as a national security decision,' Obama said on a trip to Japan, without offering details. Attorney General Eric Holder was to make the formal announcement later Friday.

'I am absolutely convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be subject to the most exacting demands of justice,' he said. 'The American people will insist on it and my administration will insist on it.'

The trial will take place in close proximity to the site of the World Trade Center towers in New York and would be by far the largest and most dramatic terrorism trial in US history.

The twin towers collapsed after two planes were hijacked and crashed into them in 2001. Another plane struck the Pentagon and a fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania, in total killing nearly 3,000 people.