Hark, the Danger! Or Not

By CLYDE HABERMAN

Did you hear how sympathizers of a notorious terrorism suspect tried to storm the federal courthouse off Foley Square over the weekend? No? Surely, then, you heard about the armed camp that Lower Manhattan became, with a ring of blue uniforms so thick that you couldn't walk south of Canal Street without being stopped by a police officer.

The Day

Clyde Haberman offers his take on the news.

Didn't hear about that, either?

Neither did we, and for good reason. Nothing like that took place. That's the point.

There has been incessant fear-mongering by prominent politicians and other public figures about how it is not safe to put certain suspects accused of terrorist plots on trial in our courthouses, how these people must be kept far away and taken before military tribunals on the Am erican base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Yet New Yorkers keep proving these weak-kneed people wrong. We have had plenty of such trials here in the American city that has suffered from terrorism more than any other, and collectively we haven't blinked.

That's how it was once more on Saturday when Abu Hamza al-Masri and two fellow defendants appeared in Federal District Court on Pearl Street to hear a long list of charges that boiled down to an assessment by the United States attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, that “these are men who were at the nerve centers of Al Qaeda's terror networks.”

The United States had tried for years to get its hands on Mr. Masri, a British citizen who was born Mostafa Kamel Mostafa in Egypt 54 years ago. (His assumed name, al-Masri, means “the Egyptian” in Arabic.) He has been described as a hate-spewing preacher at a mosque in London where Islamic radicals were recruited. Among his congregants were Zacarias Moussaoui, a co nspirator in the Sept. 11 attacks, and Richard C. Reid, the so-called shoe bomber. Both are serving life sentences in federal prison with no hope of ever seeing a parole officer.

Mr. Masri's lawyers fought hard against his extradition, but on Friday the British courts finally told the American authorities: Take him. No one was more delighted to see him go than the British prime minister, David Cameron. “Like the rest of the public,” Mr. Cameron said, “I'm sick to the back teeth of people who come here, threaten our country, who stay at vast expense to the taxpayer, and we can't get rid of them.”

Hours after he landed here, Mr. Masri stood with the others before Magistrate Judge Frank Maas to hear the charges against them.

On Pearl Street, security is never relaxed. Not surprisingly, it was more intense than usual on Saturday. Armed officers stood guard. Court workers who regularly park in an underground garage had to pop their trunks for inspec tion.

But beyond Pearl Street, life went on as normal, just as it has during other terrorism-related trials that have been held with fair regularity in Manhattan and at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn. At times, several trials have been under way simultaneously, without the slightest disruption in the city's rhythm.

Mr. Masri, who lost an eye and both hands in an explosion years ago, is being held downtown at the Metropolitan Correctional Center. For his court appearances, he will be taken from there, no doubt shackled, and walked through a connecting tunnel deep beneath the street. As my colleague Jim Dwyer noted in a column a year and a half ago, “few places on earth are better set up than Lower Manhattan for handling dangerous people.”

He offered that observation after the Obama administration abandoned its initial commitment to hold a civilian trial on Pearl Street for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. The Justice Department caved in to Congressional Republicans, leading New York officials and tabloid editorialists who screamed that the likes of Mr. Mohammed did not deserve civilian justice.

Into that mix, City Hall and the Police Department added security fears, with warnings about costs so high they could induce nose bleeds. So Mr. Mohammed is being tried by a military commission at Guantánamo, where he has a hearing scheduled for next Monday.

He is there despite the demonstrated superiority of civilian trials in bringing suspected terrorists to justice - and in then throwing them into prison for long sentences. Messrs. Moussaoui and Reid are but two examples. The betting here is that the trial being prepared for Mr. Masri will reinforce that point one more time.