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Giuliani: Obama Repeating 'Mistake of History' With Sept. 11 Trial Decision

The mayor who oversaw rescue efforts in the wake of the attacks on lower Manhattan tells "Fox News Sunday" the president is only granting the "wish" of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad at the expense of the American people and that the conspirators should be tried in a military tribunal.
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Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani accused the Obama administration of "repeating the mistake of history" by bringing the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and his accomplices to New York for a civilian trial, saying the administration has definitively reverted to a "pre-9/11 approach."

The mayor who oversaw rescue and recovery efforts in the wake of the attacks on lower Manhattan told "Fox News Sunday" the president is only granting the "wish" of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad at the expense of the American people and that the conspirators should be tried in a military tribunal.

He questioned why the administration would use the tribunals for other suspects but not the Sept. 11 conspirators.

"What the Obama administration is telling us loud and clear is that both in substance and reality, the War on Terror from their point of view is over," Giuliani said. "(Mohammad) should be tried in a military tribunal. He is a war criminal. This is an act of war."

The Obama administration's decision Friday to bring the alleged conspirators to New York has triggered a backlash from those who say a civilian trial affords the defendants rights they do not deserve, treats them as ordinary criminals and could be used as a platform to spew anti-American rhetoric as well as critique the actions of the Bush administration.

Giuliani said the biggest problem is that the United States is treating terrorists as it did after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which was followed by a string of other terrorist attacks on Americans overseas and finally by the Sept. 11 massacre.

And he suggested that such a high-profile trial in New York City would burden New York City both with the added risk of an attack and the added cost of security expenses.

"Of course it's going to create more security concerns. Just wait and see how much New York City spends on this in order to protect him," Giuliani said. "This gives all the benefits to the terrorists and much less benefits to the public."

Former U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey has also criticized the decision.

But others are standing by the Obama administration, arguing that a federal civilian trial held according to the standards of U.S. law is a victory for the United States against terrorism.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., told "Fox News Sunday" that, contrary to Giuliani's claim, a military tribunal trial would grant Mohammad's wish to be seen as a "holy warrior."

"If we try him before military officers, that image of a soldier will be portrayed by the Islamic community. That's not the image we want," Reed said.

He said that acquittals in the case are "highly unlikely," and that convictions reached in civilian court will deal a blow to those who sought to wreck American society. When the jury hands down the verdict, Reed said, "He will know he's lost."

White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod told CNN's "State of the Union" Sunday that nearly 200 terrorism cases have been tried in the courts since 2001 with a 91 percent success rate, and that "we're very confident" about the upcoming New York trials. He said the decision was made by Attorney General Eric Holder, in concert with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also said in an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" that she welcomes the trial. Federal officials are expected to seek the death penalty in the case.

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Blinded Prison Guard: Don't House Terror Suspects in NYC

Saturday, November 14, 2009
By Joseph Abrams

The high-security prison in New York City where 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is expected to be sent to await his trial has a supermax wing to keep even the most notorious criminals quiet — but it isn't perfect. Just ask Louis Pepe.

Ten months before Al Qaeda in 2001 struck a deathblow in the heart lower Manhattan, one of the terrorist group's founding members plunged a sharpened comb through Pepe's left eye and into his brain, blinding the 42-year-old prison guard and causing severe brain injuries that plague him to this day.

Pepe told FoxNews.com he worries that sending Mohammed and four of his alleged fellow 9/11 conspirators to New York could compromise the safety of the guards at the MCC prison. Keeping the prisoners in one location, he said, was especially dangerous.

"Could you imagine over there what they're gonna do, God forbid?" asked Pepe, now 52, who lost feeling in the right side of his body and most of his ability to speak. "After all these years, you'd think they should know."

On Nov. 1, 2000, Pepe was ambushed in the cell of Mamdouh Mahmud Salim — an alleged top aide to Usama bin Laden. Salim's cellmate, another Al Qaeda suspect, joined in the attack, which prosecutors say was an attempt to steal Pepe's keys to the cell block to free other prisoners and take hostages.

The two had been granted permission by a federal judge to purchase hot sauce, says Pepe's sister, which they then stored in a honey jar and used to create a blinding mace. Teaming up against Pepe, they beat and blinded him, covering the floor in his spattered blood. They then tried to rape him as he waited an entire hour for fellow guards to come to his aid, his sister said.

"They wanted to discredit the badge and what he stood for," Eileen Trotta told FoxNews.com. "After they plunged him in the eye with that makeshift knife, they did the sign of the cross on his chest."

Trotta said it would be like "deja vu" to see more Al Qaeda detainees shipped into New York for trial, where their court hearings will be just blocks from Ground Zero

"There's no reason why everything has to be in New York, especially after 9/11 and what happened to Louis," she said. "It doesn't make sense — why bring them into the hotbed of the city?"

The Obama administration announced Friday morning it was ending the military commissions that were trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-defendants at Guantanamo Bay, and would transfer them into civilian courts — and out of the military prison complex that has kept them confined for the better part of a decade.

The federal Bureau of Prisons, which administers the MCC complex in New York, said the jail has long housed "some of the most dangerous offenders" in the nation — and housed them safely. Accused terrorists linked to Al Qaeda plots are currently being held in cells on "10 South," the prison's notorious 10th floor, where the convicted leaders of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center were held during their trial.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he supported the Obama administration's decision to bring the suspects to New York to face justice near the World Trade Center site where so many New Yorkers were murdered.

"I have great confidence that the NYPD, with federal authorities, will handle security expertly," Bloomberg said. "The NYPD is the best police department in the world and it has experience dealing with high-profile terrorism suspects and any logistical issues that may come up during the trials."

The Bureau of Prisons said the attack on Pepe was nearly unique and that the prison's highly trained staff are prepared for any class of criminal.

"That was an extraordinarily brutal attack and I don't believe they've experienced anything like that since then," said Traci Billingsley, a spokeswoman for the bureau.

Billingsley said she could not discuss whether security measures have changed since Pepe was nearly killed in 2000, nor could she discuss whether any new steps would be taken if more Al Qaeda suspects are sent to the MCC.

But those reassurances were little consolation for Pepe and his sister, who said the government was quick to forget the terrible lesson of his attack.

"We're such a lax country — we don't learn from our mistakes," Trotta told FoxNews.com. "We have to protect our own, and at this point we're not doing it.

"After almost 10 years I'm still seeing my brother struggling very hard to have some kind of semblance of life."