AG Opinion: No Execution for 9/11 Plotters

AG Opinion: No Execution for 9/11 Plotters

By PIERRE THOMAS, JASON RYAN and THERESA COOK March 14, 2008 Font Size Attorney General Michael Mukasey suggested Friday that he believes the alleged 9/11 plotters held at Guantanamo Bay should not be executed if convicted. Mukasey Makes First Trip to Guantanamo "I kind of hope they don't get it," Mukasey said after a speech at the London School of Economics. "Because many of them want to be martyrs, and it's kind of like the conversation … 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. In February, the Pentagon charged six of the 9/11 conspirators, including the alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed. The others: Walid Bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Mustafa al Hawsawi -- who the government claims is a key financier for the attacks -- and Mohammed al Kahtani, who is alleged to have been the 20th hijacker on United flight 93 but was denied entry into the United States at the Orlando International Airport. Mukasey told the London audience that he would not speak to the legality of the death penalty, saying, "We have rather a different society, we have rather different traditions" in the United States. The European Union, of which the United Kingdom is a member, is opposed to the use of capital punishment in all cases. Of those charged in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, "one of them at least is proud enough of it to have written to his wife that he thinks he is innocent because it was only 3,000," Mukasey said. "If those are not poster children for the death penalty, I don't know who is." Story US to Seek Death Penalty in 9/11 CaseMukasey made clear the statements are his personal opinion, and heavily qualified them. "In a way, I kind of hope, from a personal standpoint, and I can say this because the military commissions will be run by the Department of Defense not by the Justice Department -- although we are participating with them, and helping them in the prosecution, but it will be run by the Department of Defense," he said. Still, the statement seems at odds with Bush administration policy that broadly supports the death penalty. The record suggests the administration believes capital punishment is the most appropriate penalty for terrorists convicted of killing Americans. AG Opinion: No Execution for 9/11 Plotters

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/DOJ/sto...4453816&page=1

I hope they don't get the death penalty either, but this is because I am unconditionally opposed to the death penalty.

While I am not unconditionally opposed to the death penalty, I do believe this would be the "easy" way out for them. Let them rot in jail. Now, if only we could put them in a cell with "Bubba", without them being killed. Would Allah still love them after they'd taken up the butt?

I agree with MJ. I think the whole "you can't kill, but if you do something horrible, we can kill you and it's okay" argument seems stupid to me. There are some circumstances of course that it could apply to be okay in my eyes, but this is not one of them.

If you kill someone then you should be killed. An eye for an eye, I say.

I think this would drastically decrease the amount of murders out there.

That may be true, but you also have to rule in stuff like accidental murders, vehicular manslaughter, wreckless driving that casued a wreck which resulted in death. What if you kill somebody in self defense? There's millions of variables that makes it too complicated on either side.