American military prosecutors Monday asked a senior official to approve charges against a Guantanamo detainee for his alleged role in the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. That and a variety of other terrorism charges against the man could carry the death penalty.The prosecutors have requested the charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi citizen of Yemeni descent, who is among 14 men the U.S. government considers 'high value detainees.' The men were held by the Central Intelligence Agency in secret prisons before being transferred to the military-run detention center on the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba two years ago.
The Pentagon says al-Nashiri worked with al-Qaida leader Osama Bin-Laden to organize and carry out the attack on the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole, which killed 17 American sailors, and an attack on a French supertanker two years later, as well as a failed attempt to attack another U.S. warship. He is the first person to be charged in the Cole attack.
Under the military commissions process, a senior Defense Department official, Susan Crawford, must now decide whether to approve the charges, and whether to allow prosecutors to seek the death penalty, as they have requested.