Military prosecutors have decided to seek the death penalty for six Guantánamo detainees who are to be charged with central roles in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, government officials who have been briefed on the charges said Sunday. ...
... Some officials briefed on the case have said the prosecutors view their task in seeking convictions for the Sept. 11 attacks as a historic challenge. A special group of military and Justice Department lawyers has been working on the case for several years.
Even if the detainees are convicted on capital charges, any execution would be many months or, perhaps years, from being carried out, lawyers said, in part because a death sentence would have to be scrutinized by civilian appeals courts.
What the New York Times reporter doesn't say was just reported by Slate legal correspondent, Dahlia Lithwick, on NPR's Day to Day. Bringing these men to justice now, and with the promise of the death penalty, imposes on the next administration a military legal system it may not want to have anything to do with, a system Dick Cheney would like to immortalize. That may have been part of the thinking of the administration although, by bringing these men to trial under threat of the death penalty, it also runs the risk of facing questions in the US and in the international community about the use of torture on the accused.
