New York: US prosecutors will seek death penalty for six Guantanamo detainees who are to be charged with central roles in the September 11 terror attacks before the troubled military commission system that has yet to begin a single trial seven years after the Al Qaeda strike.

Government officials said the six men, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who has described himself as the mastermind of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, will face a number of charges including war-crimes. A Defence Department official, who did not wish to be named told The New York Times that 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."

A decision to seek the death penalty increase the international focus on the case and present new challenges to the troubled military commission system that has yet to begin a single trial, the daily said. 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 labelled the "20th hijacker," who was denied entry to the United States in the month before the attacks. Under the rules of the Guantanamo 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 has the authority to accept or reject the request.

Source : PTI