Reuters When the Obama administration declared it wanted to put suspects involved in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on trial in a New York federal courtroom, cries of outrage erupted in the US Congress. Both Democrats and Republicans worried this would put New York City in the crosshairs for new Al-Qaeda attacks. Congress eventually passed a law forbidding the administration from trying alleged Sept. 11 conspirators, or any other militants detained at the US military facility at Guantanamo, Cuba, in US civilian courts. But when it comes to the cases of five alleged top militants whose extradition from Britain to the United States a European human rights court approved on Tuesday, the White House will have no choice. British and US officials said the Obama administration had given ironclad assurances to Prime Minister David Cameron's government that the five militants would be tried in the US federal court system, and they would not face a potential sentence of capital punishment. Three of the five to whom the European court ruling on Tuesday applied — Abu Hamza, Khalid al Fawwaz and Adel Bary — have all been under indictment for years in the US Southern District of New York. Law enforcement officials said that prosecutors, whose courtrooms are only blocks from the site of the World Trade Center towers downed in 2011, are prepared to try the cases if the suspects finally are extradited from Britain. The officials noted that several notorious militants, including Ramzi Yousef, alleged mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, were prosecuted and convicted in the same courts and are now serving lengthy US prison terms. Some are being held in ultra-secure “Supermax” prisons where the European court said US authorities might be entitled to jail the five extradition subjects if they are convicted. But for political, as well as other reasons, civilian trials for alleged militants lately have been the exception rather than the rule in high-profile counter-terrorism cases. Tuesday's European court action appears unlikely to permanently change that — or alter President Barack Obama's preferred approach in fighting militants, which centers on clandestine operations and lethal drone strikes. Indeed, just last week, the Pentagon announced that the accused Sept. 11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and a handful suspected co-conspirators will be tried before a US military tribunal at Guantanamo, and could face the death penalty. The extradition cases demonstrate how what President George W. Bush once called the “global war on terrorism” has evolved in the years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. In fact, the cases of all the men whose extraditions the European court approved have their roots in events that took place before the Sept. 11 attacks. Two of them, Fawwaz and Bary, face charges in connection with 1998 bombings of US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. __
