Families back bid for death penalty

Reported by teletext on Saturday, 14 November 2009 (on November 14, 2009)

Relatives of British victims of the September 11 terror attacks have welcomed news that prosecutors will push for the death penalty in the New York trials of five alleged plotters.But bereaved relatives in the United States questioned the decision to hold the trial of alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others in a federal courtroom just streets away from where the World Trade Centre once stood.Attorney General Eric Holder said he fully expected prosecutors to seek the death penalty in all five of the cases relating to the 2001 attack in New York.He also announced that a further five alleged terrorists currently held at Guantanamo Bay, including a major suspect in the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole, will face a military trial.Norman Thompson lost his son, Cantor Fitzgerald stockbroker Nigel Thompson, in the attack on lower Manhattan on September 11, 2001.Speaking from his Sheffield home, Mr Thompson said: "We will never get closure, the sentence we were handed is for the rest of our lives. But if they do try him and find him guilty and say, 'yes, the death penalty' we wouldn't disagree with that."Graham Berkeley died aged 37 when the plane he was in struck the second tower.His father Charles Berkeley, 77, from Shrewsbury, said it was better that the suspects were tried in court than remain at Guantanamo Bay. But he added that it would bring no comfort to his family, saying: "The loss will be the same."But US citizen Lee Ielpi, whose firefighter son died in the attacks, said the city's wounds were simply still too raw for the trial to be held there.He said: "If we have to bring them to the US, New York City is not the place to have it, let alone in a courthouse that is in the shadows of the twin towers. Ripping that scab open will create a tremendous hardship."

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