9/11 Families Outraged by Obama Call to Suspend Guantanamo War Crimes Trials

[Keith In Tampa]

9/11 Families Outraged by Obama Call to Suspend Guantanamo War Crimes
Trials Families
of victims of terrorist attacks say they are outraged by President Obama's
call to halt the trials of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.

FOXNews.com

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

* **[2009-01-20]*

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Family members of people killed on September 11, 2001, and in other terror
attacks say they are outraged by President Obama's draft order calling for
the suspension of war crimes trials of prisoners being held at Guantanamo
Bay.

"To me it's beyond comprehension that they would take the side of the
terrorists," said Peter Gadiel, whose son, James, was killed at the World
Trade Center on 9/11. "Many of these people have been released and been
right back killing, right back at their terrorist work again."

Obama's request on the first full day of his presidency came as a draft
order was being prepared ordering the closing of the Guantanamo prison
within a year. A judge responded by halting the case against a Canadian
detainee accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan, issuing a
120-day continuance in the case.

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"I see no reason why we should delay these proceedings. Let justice be
served," said Jefferson Crowther, whose 24-year-old son, Welles, was killed
in the Twin Towers after he saved the lives of several others.

Critics blasted Obama's decision, which they said would delay justice in
cases that have already been waiting for the better part of a decade.

"There is no need to suspend [the military tribunals]. There is no reason
why [Obama] can't conduct a concurrent review at the same time that the
military commission process is moving forward to render justice for the
terrorists that have murdered thousands of people," said former Cmdr. Kirk
Lippold, who lost 17 sailors during a suicide bombing attack on the USS Cole
in 2000. A suspect in the case is being held at Guantanamo.

"It demeans their deaths because we seem to be more concerned with the
rights of detainees than we are with the justice that is being denied to my
sailors that were killed," Lippold told FOXNews.com.

Obama's request may mark the end of the system used by the Bush
administration to try terror suspects. War crimes charges against 21 men are
pending at Guantanamo, though the detainees may have to be moved to America
or extradited, depending on the administration's plans for them.

The Obama administration is calling for a systematic review of each
detainee's case to determine who can be released and who cannot. "It is in
the interests of the United States to review whether and how such
individuals can and should be prosecuted," says the draft order released on
Wednesday.

Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said he would take the detainees in his own
district, which lies just a few miles from the field near Shanksville, Pa.,
where United Flight 93 crashed after it was hijacked by terrorists on Sept.
11, killing all 44 people aboard.

"Sure, I'd take them. They're no more dangerous in my district than in
Guantanamo," Murtha said, calling the Guantanamo prison a "sore in the
United States' moral standards."

"There's no reason not to put them in prisons in the United States and
handle them the way they would handle any other prisoners."

But some 9/11 families said they were concerned that if the trials were
moved to criminal courts in the U.S., the proceedings would put civilians at
risk.

"The safest place to have these trials is Guantanamo Bay. If they were to
move to the homeland it would endanger all of us," said Lorraine Arias
Believeau of New Jersey, whose brother, Adam, was killed on 9/11.

But human rights groups welcomed the president's draft order, calling it an
important first step for his administration.

"It is a major positive step in the right direction," said Jamil Dakwar, a
lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union who observed pretrial hearings
at Guantanamo this week.

If transferred to U.S. courts, some of the detainees might be freed because
of the aggressive interrogation techniques used against them. Mohammed
al-Qahtani, the alleged "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 plot, was
interrogated so severely at Guantanamo Bay that Bush administration
officials said he was tortured and did not refer his case for prosecution.

Some of the accused terrorists, meanwhile, were impatient to have their
trials proceed.

"We should continue so we don't go backward, we go forward," Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks told the judge in
their case. He is among five detainees accused in the attacks who have asked
to be given the death penalty, believing they will become martyrs if they
are executed.

Lippold, who helped determine detainee policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff
as a strategic planner, said he feels he has a large investment "in making
sure that these guys do not return to the fight, that they do not kill
again."

He said moving the cases to civilian courts was primarily a political act
and could make it difficult to proceed with cases without compromising vital
intelligence sources and methods.

"The whole issue of detainees has become so politically charged that people
forget that Americans lives are at stake," he told FOXNews.com.

Crowther, a volunteer fireman for decades, said he does not care where the
trials take place, but he wants to see more action from his government.

"I'm constantly doing my part -- I want my government to do its part for me.
I want those people who participated in my son's death and the death of some
3,000 others, I want to see them punished, if found guilty, in a court of
law," he said.

If the cases don't go to trial, Crowther said, "many, many families are
going to be very upset."

*The Associated Press contributed to this report.*

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