U.S. to seek death penalty against 9/11 planner

By Jane Sutton

MIAMI (Reuters) - U.S. military prosecutors will file charges on Monday against the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and five other Guantanamo prisoners and will seek to execute them if they are convicted, officials involved in the process said.

The charges against former al Qaeda operations chief Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and five other captives will be announced in an 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) news conference at the Pentagon. They will be the first charges from the Guantanamo war court alleging direct involvement in the attacks and the first involving the death penalty.

Prosecutors will send the charges to a Pentagon appointee overseeing the Guantanamo trials, Susan Crawford, whose approval is needed before any trials can proceed.

Mohammed, a Pakistani national, has said he planned every aspect of the Sept. 11 attacks.

But his confession could be problematic if used as evidence because the CIA has admitted it subjected him to a simulated drowning technique known as "waterboarding" during interrogations.

The procedure is widely considered to be torture and the Guantanamo court rules prohibit the use of evidence obtained through torture, as does an international treaty the United States has signed.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 Operation, from A to Z," the U.S. military quoted Mohammed as saying in an administrative hearing at Guantanamo, according to the transcript released by the Pentagon in March 2007.

"I was the operational director for Sheikh Usama (Osama) Bin Laden for the organizing, planning, follow-up, and execution of the 9/11 operation."