As predicted, the five Guantanamo Bay detainees accused of killing nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, will use their civilian trials in Manhattan as a propaganda platform to criticize American foreign policy. But forcing jurors in New York to listen to jihadist claptrap just blocks from the former World Trade Center site is the least of the problems created by this ill-advised move from military tribunal to federal court.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of 9/11 who also admitted to a U.S. military tribunal that he decapitated former Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, and his four fellow Gitmo detainees were captured and held as enemy combatants under different rules of evidence from those required for homegrown criminals.