US Senate defeats Guantanamo Bay trials restrictions

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US Senate voted Thursday to defeat a measure that would have blocked five Guantanamo Bay detainees accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks from getting trials in federal courts.

Lawmakers voted 54-45 to effectively kill Republican Senator Lindsey Graham's proposal, an amendment to a 2010 spending bill for the US Departments of Commerce, State and Science.

Graham, backed by fellow Republican Senator John McCain, Democratic Senator Jim Webb, and Independent Senator Joe Lieberman, had sought to forbid funding to try the suspected terrorists in federal courts.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Defense Secretary Robert Gates had opposed Graham's measure as tying their hands on how best to proceed with the roughly 215 detainees held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

US President Barack Obama's administration is expected to announce by November 16 its plans for prosecuting some of the prisoners in federal courts, or before military commissions at the facility.

The five include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the September 11 attacks.

Republicans have warned that trying suspected terrorists in federal courts -- on US soil -- would grant them rights they do not currently have and could hurt national security despite extensive measures to prevent such a breach.

"The attacks of 9/11 were not a crime, they were a war crime," McCain said, adding it was his "unshakable view" that the suspects should be tried before military commissions, not in the civilian justice system.

But "the mechanism of cutting off funds for prosecution ... would set a terrible precedent," said Democratic Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"The determination of the proper forum for the trial of 9/11 terrorists should be made by the professional prosecutors, based on the circumstances of the case and their judgment as to where is the best chance to gain a successful prosecution," said Levin.

Obama vowed on his second day in office to shutter the facility, a magnet for global criticism of US tactics in the "war on terrorism," by January 22, though White House aides say they face an uphill fight to keep that promise.

Of the roughly 215 people still held at the controversial prison camp, which then-president George W. Bush opened in January 2002, about 80 are waiting to be released and a further 60 are expected to be prosecuted.

Rights groups immediately hailed the vote, with American Civil Liberties Union senior legislative counsel Christopher Anders saying: "We have an American system of justice that works, and there is no reason not to use it."

"Making it more difficult to prosecute detainees in our federal courts only serves to delay bringing them to justice," he said, underlining that some 200 terrorism suspects had successfully been tried in federal courts since the attacks of September 11.

In late October, the US Congress gave Obama the green light to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to US soil for trial, with restrictions forbidding their release onto US soil, and requirements to notify local officials of plans to mitigate any security risks.