Alleged 9/11 plotters:

No trial in sight

US: Nine years after the September 11, 2001 attacks, five men accused of plotting the devastating strikes remain in a legal black hole, with political and legal wrangling delaying their prosecution.

They are detained at Guantanamo, which is still open almost two years after President Barack Obama was elected pledging to close the facility.

And the question of whether they should be prosecuted before US civilian courts or military tribunals at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba has yet to be resolved.

The administration announced with much fanfare late last year that the high-profile suspects would be tried before a court in New York, just steps from where the 9/11 hijackers rammed planes into the World Trade Center towers.

But the decision prompted a furious backlash, with many opposed to a trial anywhere in the United States for the alleged perpetrators of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York and Washington.

"The review continues," a US government official said of the administration's search for trial venue for the five men, who include the self-described mastermind of the attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Washington, Thursday, AFP