KSM, Bin Attash, Bin al Shibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and al Hawsawi to be prosecuted in SDNY
DOD and DOJ today jointly announced that these five individuals will be tried in the Southern District of New York, with prosecutors from both SDNY and the Eastern District of Virginia will “co-manage” the case (an interesting resolution of the reported inter-office tug-of-war to get this case). The press release is here. It appears the men will be held pending trial at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Foley Square (adjacent to the courthouse and SDNY offices), just as Ramzi Yousef and other terrorism-related defendants have been held in the past. It will be interesting to see which SDNY judge draws the case.
By Robert M. Chesney
Robert M. Chesney is Charles I. Francis Professor in Law at UT-Austin School of Law. Chesney is a national security law specialist, with a particular interest in problems associated with terrorism. Professor Chesney recently served in the Justice Department in connection with the Detainee Policy Task Force created by Executive Order 13493. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security, a senior editor for the Journal of National Security Law & Policy, an associate member of the Intelligence Science Board, a non-resident senior fellow of the Brookings Institution, a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the American Law Institute. Professor Chesney has published extensively on topics ranging from detention and prosecution in the counterterrorism context to the states secrets privilege. He served previously as chair of the Section on National Security Law of the Association of American Law Schools and as editor of the National Security Law Report (published by the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Law and National Security). His upcoming projects include two books under contract with Oxford University Press, one concerning the evolution of detention law and policy and the other examining the judicial role in national security affairs.
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