WASHINGTON, Dec 12: US President George W. Bush’s decision to try terror suspect Zacarias Moussaoui in a civilian court does not mean he has given up on the idea of military tribunals, a White House spokesman said on Wednesday.

Bush “still feels very strongly that the military tribunal are a very important option in the war against terrorism”, spokeswoman Claire Buchan said.

“Based on the information he (Bush) was given ... a decision was made that he could be tried in civil court, that it wouldn’t jeopardize intelligence.”

Bush has authorized the use of military tribunals for prosecution of suspected terrorists who are not US nationals, a measure that has provoked criticism abroad.

Moussaoui, 33, a French national of Moroccan descent, was indicted on Tuesday on six charges incuding conspiracy to commit terrorist acts, destroy aircraft, murder US employees and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. He is to be arraigned on Jan 2 in US federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, near here.

He is the first alleged member of Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network indicted in a US court in Sept 11 suicide attacks on US cities.

Arrested in August, Moussaoui had participated in training identical to that of the other 19 suspected of carrying out the attacks with hijacked airliners on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The 19 dead hijackers were named as co-conspirators in the indictment. —AFP