Obama seeks funds for 9/11 trial hosts

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is proposing a $200 million fund to help pay for security costs in cities hosting the trials of accused terrorists such as Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

The money will be included in a budget plan for 2011 of roughly $3.7 trillion that President Barack Obama will submit to Congress on Monday, a congressional aide said Saturday.

The administration said late last year the trials would take place in federal court in lower Manhattan, near where the World Trade Center once stood. But there’s growing opposition from the city, and it now seems likely that the White House will decide to hold the trial elsewhere.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg has put the cost of tighter security at $216 million just for the first year after Mohammed and the others were to arrive from the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Options for alternative trial sites include the northern Virginia city of Alexandria, which hosted the 2006 sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, who pleaded guilty to helping plan the 9/11 attacks.