Pentagon (Still) Seeking Death Penalty in Trial of Prisoner

Pentagon Seeking Death Penalty in Trial of Cole-Bomb Suspect (Water-Boarding has been used along with other other means of torture.) Guilty or not, how is torture and the death penalty going to help serve security? Or will such a plan and execution merely make yet another hero and win more for the cause of anger at the West and worse? A number of Muslim leaders are speaking out condemning terrorism. US current methods will not further their cause.

20/12/2008 BY CAROL ROSENBERG

The Pentagon disclosed late Friday that it is still pursuing the death penalty prosecution at Guantánamo of an alleged architect of the 2000 USS Cole bombing off the coast of Yemen, a day after revealing that staffers are drafting plans to close the prison camps.

Abd al Rahim Nashiri, 43, could be executed by the U.S. military if he is convicted at the remote U.S. Navy base in Cuba in the attack that killed 17 sailors.

Nashiri, born in Saudi Arabia, allegedly tested and equiped a small garbage barge with bombs, then sent two jihadists to detonate their load, blasting a 40-foot hole in the $1 billion warship.

Defense lawyer Denny LeBoeuf blasted the decision, noting that the charges were first proposed six months ago and were approved ``a month and a day before the [Barack Obama] inauguration. I think it's outrageous.''

She noted that the CIA had admitted to waterboarding Nashiri in secret overseas custody, a technique some lawyers argue would invalidate any of his confessions.

President-elect Obama has pledged to close the prison camps and said he favors traditional trials over Guantánamo's special post-9/11 war court.

ACLU director Anthony Romero called the timing of the Nashiri charges ``another 11th hour stunt from the Bush administration to tie the hands of the incoming president.''

Friday's move is the latest sign that the Pentagon is trying to make good on plans to try up to 70 men at Guantánamo.

The court had also scheduled a Jan. 19-21 mental competency hearing in another death penalty case -- for alleged 9/11 co-conspirator Yemeni Ramzi bin al Shibh.

SOURCE: Miami Herald

Andy Worthington, probably the most definitive writer on all the Guantanamo prisoners to date is author of the book: -The Guantanamo Files- and more on nearly a daily basis
Here

For specific details on Al-Nashiri from Andy Worthington go:
Here

Note: Al-Nashiri is also referred to as Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. GO Here

Analysis & Commentary: Justice | Brennan Center for Justice
... 2005 the CIA destroyed videotapes of interrogations of Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, two early detainees in the Bush Administration's "war on terror"
Here

And for the home page of this Brennan Center
Here

Also you may want to see the reports available through Seton Hall Law School