MANHATTAN — Downtown residents remain stuck in limbo after federal officials spent the weekend going back and forth over whether the 9/11 terror trials would be moved out of Manhattan.
White House officials late last week began backing away from the plan to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other terror suspects in lower Manhattan after a groundswell of opposition to the plan arose from residents who didn't want their neighborhood turned into a locked-down security zone and local politicians who didn't want to pay for it.
On Friday night, there were reports that the Obama administration had told the justice department it would not hold the terror trials in Manhattan.
But on weekend talkshows, the White House seemed to back away from the report.
"We've made no decisions on that," said David Axelrod, a senior advisor to President Barack Obama, on "Meet the Press." "We have to take into consideration the concerns of the local authorities in New York, and we will do so."
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the Manhattan plan was still alive.
"We want to see this man tried and brought to justice in the place in which the crime was committed," Gibbs said on CNN on Sunday
The Daily News reported that the White House is still saying privately that the Manhattan option is dead.
Community Board 1 in lower Manhattan had offered alternatives to holding the trials downtown, including Governors Island and other sites upstate.
But on Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer said he didn't want the terror trials anywhere in the state of New York.
"At this point, it's obvious that they cannot have the trials in New York," Schumer told the New York Post. "I'm familiar with three sites listed upstate. I don't think any of those could be suitable."
