9/11 plotters face death penalty in trial near 'Ground Zero'

The alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and four suspected co-plotters will be tried in a civilian court blocks from where Al-Qaeda hijackers crashed two airliners into the World Trade Centre, the US government announced.

Attorney General Eric Holder said last Friday that prosecutors would seek the death penalty against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other suspects who are held at Guantanamo Bay but will be moved to a New York prison ahead of their trial.

"After eight years of delay, those allegedly responsible for the attacks of September 11 will finally face justice," Holder said, without giving a date.

"They will be brought to New York to answer to their alleged crimes in a courthouse just blocks away from where the Twin Towers once stood."

Five more Guantanamo detainees, including Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, accused of plotting the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole destroyer off Yemen that killed 17 US sailors, will be tried before military commissions.

The military tribunals were heavily criticised after being set up by former president George W. Bush in late 2001, but have since been reformed to grant defendants more rights to evidence and bar evidence obtained through torture.

The announcement, key to President Barack Obama's plans to shutter Guantanamo by January, was blasted by families of the nearly 3,000 victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"To allow a terrorist and a war criminal the opportunity of having US constitutional protections is a wrong thing to do and it's never been done before," said Ed Kowalski of the 9/11 Families for a Secure America Foundation.

Peter Gadiel, who lost his 23-year-old son James in the World Trade Centre's north tower, accused Obama of trying to establish a "show trial" that would end up being "a circus".

The decision drew flak from Obama's Republican foes in Congress, who have mounted a vigorous campaign to block the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to US soil.