By Julie Shapiro
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
FINANCIAL DISTRICT — A terror trials debate one block from Ground Zero took on the question that has baffled everyone from Lower Manhattan residents to President Obama: What should be done with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
Three legal and security experts gave their views Wednesday night at a panel sponsored by the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. They spoke to an audience of about 60 at the 9/11 Memorial Preview Site on Vesey Street.
The first panelist, Karen Greenberg, executive director of New York University’s Center on Law and Security, said Mohammed and the other accused 9/11 terrorists should unequivocally be tried in civilian court in the Southern District of New York.
“We know how to convict these guys,” she said. “We know how to put them away for life.”
While many people who live near the Daniel Patrick Moynihan US Courthouse in Lower Manhattan oppose locating the trial there, Greenberg said accused terrorists are already tried there all the time.
“I’m not afraid, and I don’t think Americans should be told to be afraid,” she said.
But another panelist, security expert Dennis Farrell, replied that the local community had valid quality-of-life concerns based on the gargantuan police presence the trials would require.
“The word ‘normal’ would not be used,” said Farrell, who has more than three decades of experience in law enforcement. “It would certainly have a very negative impact.”
The third panelist, New York State Supreme Court Judge Edward McCarty, advocated a military tribunal rather than a civilian trial.
McCarty said Mohammed was acting as a military commander when he allegedly masterminded the 9/11 attacks, and he should be treated as such.
No clear answer emerged from the discussion, just as none has emerged from Washington. After public and political outcry over the trial location earlier this year, it appeared that US Attorney General Eric Holder had backed off holding it downtown.
But then earlier this month, Holder created another firestorm when he said holding the trials in Lower Manhattan’s federal courthouse was “not off the table.”
Marc Ameruso, a Community Board 1 member who fought to move the trials, said after Wednesday’s panel that it’s time for the Obama Administration to make a decision.
“Are they afraid to admit they were wrong?” Ameruso said. “Why don’t they just stop stringing us along, so we can get on with our lives.”
