U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Thursday wrote to Senate leaders urging that they do not prevent the Obama administration from moving terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo prison to U.S. soil.
Such a move would "unwisely restrict the ability of the Executive branch to prosecute alleged terrorists in federal courts or military commissions in the United States as well as its ability to incarcerate those convicted in such tribunals," Holder said in the letter.
The letter, addressed to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, follows passage by the House of Representatives of legislation barring such transfers, even for trial, as lawmakers had previously allowed.
If the measure becomes law, it would likely foreclose any chance of prosecuting the foreign detainees in a U.S. criminal court, a major setback for President Barack Obama, who in one of his first acts in office vowed to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Holder had announced a year ago with great fanfare plans to try the self-professed mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks in a federal criminal court in New York, just blocks from the World Trade Center site.
But local officials, Republicans and even some of Obama's fellow Democrats fiercely objected, raising concerns about security and arguing the terrorism suspects did not deserve full U.S. legal rights.
Instead, they want them tried in special military commissions. The White House shelved Holder's plans and has yet to say what the new plan will be for prosecuting three dozen or so foreign terrorism suspects at the prison.
The provision was tucked into a must-pass piece of legislation in the House to fund government operations for fiscal 2011.
The pivot by House lawmakers caught lawmakers and civil liberties groups by surprise because Democrats loyal to Obama still control both chambers of Congress and they previously had backed allowing the detainees into the United States for trial.
Republicans will take over control of the House in January and Democrats will face a slimmer majority in the Senate.
Restricts prosecution
In his letter, Holder said the provision of the legislation, known as section 1116, would set a dangerous precedent by restricting the administration's power to determine when and where to prosecute terrorism suspects.
"We have been unable to identify any parallel to section 1116 in the history of our nation in which Congress has intervened to prohibit the prosecution of particular persons or crimes. It would be a mistake to tie the hands of the president and his national security advisers now," Holder said.
He said the legislation would undermine his ability to prosecute cases in U.S. criminal courts, taking away one of the most potent weapons in the fight against terrorism.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp opened in January 2002 to hold and interrogate foreigners captured after U.S.-led forces invaded Afghanistan to oust al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors.
There are still 174 detainees at Guantanamo prison and about three dozen were set for prosecution in either U.S. criminal courts or military commissions. Republicans have demanded that the trials be held at Guantanamo.
Many detainees were captured outside Afghanistan as part of former U.S. President George W. Bush's "global war on terror" launched in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, hijacked plane attacks.
