Six Guantanamo Detainees May Face Death Penalty For Roles In Sept. 11 Terror Attack
February 10, 2008
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Military prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty for six Guantánamo detainees who are set to be charged with having central roles in the Sept. 11 attacks, government officials who have been briefed on the charges said Sunday.
The officials said the charges would be announced at the Pentagon as soon as today and were likely to include numerous war-crimes charges against the six men, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has described himself as the mastermind of the attacks.
A Defense Department official said prosecutors were seeking the death penalty because “if any case warrants it, it would be for individuals who were parties to a crime of that scale.”
The officials spoke anonymously because no one was authorized to speak about the case.
A decision to seek the death penalty would increase the international focus on the case and present new challenges to the troubled military commission system.
“The system hasn’t been able to handle the less complicated cases it has been presented with to date,” said David Glazier, a former Navy officer who is a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Among the other five suspects who will be charged are detainees who officials say were coordinators and intermediaries in the plot, including a man labeled the “20th hijacker” who was denied entry to the United States in the month before the attacks.
Under the rules of the Guantánamo war-crimes system, military prosecutors can designate charges as capital when they present them, and it is that first phase of the process that is expected this week.
The military official who then reviews them, Susan Crawford, a former military appeals court judge, has the authority to accept or reject a death penalty request.
A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment Sunday.
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