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Sat Mar 15, 2008 1:55am EDT

Don't execute 911 accused: Mukasey

By Chloe Fussell

LONDON (Reuters) - Attorney General Michael Mukasey said on Friday he hoped

Guantanamo prisoners charged in the September 11 attacks would not receive the
death penalty, even though capital punishment would be fitting.
His comments were swiftly denounced by a defense attorney for one of the accused
and by Amnesty International, who said they could prejudice the case.
"It's extremely disturbing," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty
International USA. "You have the highest-ranking law enforcement official in the
country indicating that he thinks they are guilty."
Speaking at the London School of Economics, Mukasey said the death penalty would
allow the six accused in the attacks on New York and Washington, including the self-
confessed commander of al Qaeda's foreign military operations, to portray
themselves as victims.
"I hope they don't get the death penalty -- they would see themselves as martyrs,"
Mukasey said in response to questions at a talk on Anglo-American law enforcement.
Military prosecutors are seeking to execute the men if they are convicted, although
the "convening authority" overseeing the case has yet to decide whether to accept it
and whether those charged would be eligible for the death penalty.
The accused are being held at the U.S. detention center for terrorism suspects on
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Charges are now pending against of 13 of the center's more than 275 prisoners. The
Pentagon is trying to move the Guantanamo trials along before the end of the Bush
administration in January.
Human rights groups call the proceedings a farce, as detainees do not have legal
rights normally accorded to U.S. citizens and prisoners of war.
Pakistani Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five others are charged with crimes including
murder, conspiracy and terrorism for the attacks that killed around 3,000 people in
2001.
"POSTER CHILDREN"
If the men were to receive the death penalty, it would at least be a fitting
punishment, Mukasey said. "If those are not poster children for the death penalty, I
don't know what is," he said.
Mukasey said the military commissions that would try the men are run by the
Defense Department and not his Justice Department, which is, however, assisting the
prosecution.
He said he was giving his personal opinion in hoping the September 11 accused
would escape the death penalty.
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"Many of them want to be martyrs and it's kind of like the conversation, you know,
between the sadist and the masochist. The masochist says hit me and the sadist says
no, so I am kind of hoping they don't get it," he said.
Army Lt. Col. Bryan Broyles, a military lawyer assigned to defend Mohammed al-
Qahtani, one of the six current death penalty cases at Guantanamo, said the case
was already tainted by suspected U.S. abuse of Qahtani. He added that it was
improper for Mukasey to comment.
"I appreciate him being on my side on the death penalty thing, but I don't need his
help," Broyles said.
The Pentagon declined to comment.
Qahtani, whom U.S. authorities believe was intended to be one of the September 11
hijackers, was reported while in custody to be ordered to bark like a dog or stand
nude and be draped with pictures of scantily clad women.
Cox said Mukasey's remarks fit a disturbing Bush administration pattern. "So much
for the presumption of innocence," he said.
"We have adopted a theory where people are first presumed to be guilty, and then
we feel that we don't need to give them the kind of protections that real justice
demands. Now we have discussions on whether we are going to kill them or not
before the trial is over."
(Additional reporting by Randall Mikkelsen in Washington and Jane Sutton in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Editing by Xavier Briand)