US Attorney General Mr John Ashcroft said today he would decide this week whether to seek the death penalty for suspected terrorist Mr Zacarias Moussaoui, charged with participation in the September 11th attacks.
"The death penalty for Zacarias Moussaoui is in the process of being evaluated in the Justice Department. I have to make an announcement on that by next Friday,", Mr Ashcroft told Fox News today.
Asked about possible international protest by such allies as France, which oppose the death penalty, Mr Ashcroft replied: "We are a sovereign nation. We make judgments about crimes and the penalties that exist here."
But, he added, "each case is developed on an individual basis." Mr Moussaoui, a French national, was under arrest in Minnesota for visa violations when 19 hijackers slammed three airliners into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon outside Washington, with a fourth crashing in Pennsylvania, killing more than 3,000 people in the worst terror attack in history.
Prosecutors allege that Mr Moussaoui was supposed to be the "20th hijacker," and Mr Ashcroft has said the Frenchman "engaged in the same preparation for murder" as his alleged 19 accomplices of the al-Qaeda network.
Mr Moussaoui is now being held on six counts of conspiracy, four of which can be punishable by execution. The two others carry a sentence of life imprisonment.
A 33-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent, Mr Moussaoui is the first and so far only person to be charged with participating in the September 11th attacks against the US.
AFP