American military prosecutors Monday asked a senior official to approvecharges against a Guantanamo detainee for his alleged role in theattack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000. That and a variety of otherterrorism charges against the man could carry the death penalty. VOA'sAl Pessin reports from the Pentagon.

USS Cole after a suspected terrorist bomb exploded during a refueling operation in the port of Aden, Yemen (2000 file photo)

The prosecutors haverequested the charges against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi citizenof Yemeni descent, who is among 14 men the U.S. government considers"high value detainees." The men were held by the Central IntelligenceAgency in secret prisons before being transferred to the military-rundetention center on the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba twoyears ago.

The Pentagon says al-Nashiri worked with al-Qaidaleader 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 ona French supertanker two years later, as well as a failed attempt toattack another U.S. warship. He is the first person to be charged inthe Cole attack.

Under the military commissions process, asenior Defense Department official, Susan Crawford, must now decidewhether to approve the charges, and whether to allow prosecutors toseek the death penalty, as they have requested.

The case may becomplicated by the fact that the CIA has admitted using abusiveinterrogation methods on al-Nashiri, including waterboarding, a partialdrowning technique which the U.S. government has considered torture inthe past. At a hearing on his status last year, Nashiri told amilitary judge he was tortured by U.S. interrogators, and onlyconfessed to involvement in the Cole attack and other terroristoperations in order to get the torture to stop.

But the legaladvisor to the military commissions, Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann,says the case may go forward in spite of questions about evidenceobtained through waterboarding.

"You have to look at theevidence," said General Hartmann. "We will look at the evidence, allthe evidence that is associated with the case. While there has been anadmission that there was waterboarding, there may well be otherevidence in the case. That's not necessarily the only form of evidencein the case. So it's inappropriate for us to judge one piece ofevidence or the other. All the evidence will come in and it will beevaluated by the defense, by the prosecution and by the judge."

GeneralHartmann says Nashiri will now be provided with a military attorney tohelp plan his defense. If the charges are approved, he is entitled toa preliminary hearing before a military judge within 30 days, and to atrial before a jury of U.S. military officers within 120 days. He canappeal any verdict in the regular U.S. federal courts.

Nashiriis the 20th man to have charges recommended by the Guantanamoprosecutors. Several trials have already started, including one forfive detainees accused of involvement in the September 11th attacks onthe United States in 2001.