By Nina Mandell
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — After months of protests from New Yorkers, President Obama’s advisers are likely to recommend that Khalif Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of 9/11, be tried in a military tribunal, the Washington Post reported.
The decision would come as a reversal of Attorney General Eric Holder’s original plan to hold the terror trial in lower Manhattan, which sparked angry demonstrations from local activists and politicians who said they weren’t included in the discussions about the trial’s location.
"One of the questions I have is, how did this get this far to begin with," said community activist Jan Lee, who led demonstrations against the trials. "The community matters, no matter where we do these things."
Police commissioner Ray Kelly said the trials would cost as much as $200 million a year in security costs, to form what local activists described would be a police state around lower Manhattan.
On a Sunday talk show in February, Vice President Joe Biden said the numbers had been fudged. But on the same show he did note that the military courts had been changed since the Bush years.
“We have significantly beefed up these military courts so they can pass constitutional scrutiny if we have to have a trial in these courts,” he said.
The reversal would come as a blow to civil liberty advocates who say that the decision goes back on Obama’s campaign promises to close Guantanamo Bay and try terror suspects in court.
“If the president flip-flops and retreats to the Bush military commissions, he will betray his campaign promise to restore the rule of law, demonstrate that his principles are up for grabs and lose all credibility with Americans who care about justice and the rule of law,” ACLU executive director Anthony D. Romero said in a statement.
Administration officials told the Washington Post that a final announcement could be made before March 18, when Obama leaves for Indonesia.
