NEW YORK CITY-Under pressure from Congress and numerous other entities, US Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to move the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed--the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center--to a military commission trial. This decision moves the potential trial venue out of New York City and most likely into Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The decision, which the Attorney General came to reluctantly he says, is being applauded by the Real Estate Board of New York and the Downtown Alliance, both of which have been protesting the possibility of a downtown trial from the get-go.

"The decision is a real victory for the businesses and residents of Lower Manhattan, which would have been devastated by the impact of this trial," says Steven Spinola, president of REBNY, in a statement. "Holding the terror trials in Lower Manhattan would have undermined the progress and rebuilding of this neighborhood, and it would have eroded the economic development efforts and successes over the last 10 years."

The Downtown Alliance released a similar statement to "applaud" as opposed to REBNY's to "commend" the Justice Department for reversing its initial push for a New York City trial at the Federal Courthouse here in Foley Square. "The Federal Courthouse in Lower Manhattan was never a wise first choice as a venue for the trials," says Robert R. Douglass, chairman of the Downtown Alliance, in a statement. "It is situated near some of the most densely populated business addresses and residential neighborhoods in America, and at the heart of a regional transportation network through which hundreds of thousands of people pass each day." The Sixth Amendment of the Constitution, however, guarantees that a defendant has the right to be tried in the district wherein the crime was committed. Foley Square is the closest Federal courthouse to the World Trade Center site.