US to seek death for six in 9/11

A Defence 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 in the government was authorised to speak about the case.

A decision to seek the death penalty would present new challenges to the troubled military commission system that has yet to begin a single trial.

“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.

In addition to Mohammed, the other five to be charged include detainees officials say were coordinators and intermediaries in the plot, among them 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, the 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 J Crawford, a former military appeals court judge, has the authority to accept or reject a death-penalty request.

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on Sunday.

Some officials briefed on the case have said the prosecutors view their task in seeking convictions for the September 11 attacks as a historic challenge. A special group of military and Justice Department lawyers has been working on the case for several years.

Even if the detainees are convicted on capital charges, any execution would be many months or, perhaps years, from being carried out, lawyers said.