WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY | McConnell unhappy with NYC trials for terror suspects

McConnell unhappy with NYC trials for terror suspects

Posted by Charles Gazaway - email

LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell (R) isn't happy with the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to bring the terror suspects to New York.

McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, calls the decision a "step backward" for the country's security and says it puts Americans at risk unnecessarily.

Holder says defendants should be tried where their crimes occurred, but McConnell calls that a "misguided decision."

"We have never in the past tried people captured on the battlefield overseas in the U.S. court system,” said McConnell. “Can you do it? Yes. The issue is should you and the answer is no."

McConnell says the decision to bring the suspects into the U.S. is based on what he calls the false belief that the defendants are common criminals, not war criminals.

McConnell’s sentiment is echoed by family members of some of the victims of 9-11. Debra Burlingame, the widow of a pilot from the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, said, "We have a president who doesn't know we're at war."

Friday, Holder announced that the Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said to be the mastermind of the attacks, and four other detainees from Guantanamo Bay would be placed on trial in a courtroom not far from where the World Trade center stood in lower Manhattan.

Copyright 2009 WAVE-TV and Raycom Media. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.