Charleston church shooter trial begins Monday

WASHINGTON: Dylann Roof, the 22-year-old accused of gunning down nine black churchgoers in South Carolina, is set to go on trial Monday over a crime that so horrified the country he faces two death penalty prosecutions.

The suspected white supremacist allegedly carried out the June 17, 2015 massacre with a .45 caliber Glock handgun at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston after he took part in an evening Bible study class.



Also known as "Mother Emanuel," the church is one of the oldest black congregations in the American South, with strong links to the fight against slavery and segregation.

"You rape our women!" victims' relatives reported Roof as saying during the attack. "You're trying to take over the country! You've got to go!" Police swiftly identified him from a surveillance video and arrested him the next day.

The authorities found chilling evidence of Roof's apparent neo-Nazi leanings on a website believed to be his. He espoused racist views toward African-Americans and posed for photos with firearms and the Confederate battle flag.

Speculation over Roof's case is focused on whether he will receive a sentence of life in prison or death.

"The nature of the alleged crime and the resulting harm" compelled the US Justice Department to pursue the death penalty, US Attorney General Loretta Lynch said.

The federal proceedings could last weeks. A separate state trial, which could also result in a death sentence, is expected to begin in January.

As Monday's proceedings get underway, national attention will turn to Charleston, a bucolic port city known for its cobblestone streets and pastel antebellum homes.



Roof is the first suspect who will be considered for potential death sentences at both the state and federal levels, Robert Dunham, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said.

"The irony is that an institution that has a history of discrimination" against African-Americans, he added of capital punishment in the United States, "is being used to execute somebody for a hate crime."

"Does its pursuit in the name of racial equity undermine efforts to ensure that the death penalty is not discriminatorily opposed against others?"

Roof's lawyers have said the suspected murderer was willing to plead guilty in exchange for being spared from the death penalty.

Charleston is already trying a former South Carolina police officer, Michael Slager, accused of murdering an unarmed black man as he fled from a traffic stop.

Hit by five bullets, 50-year-old Walter Scott fell to the ground and quickly died in the April 4, 2015 encounter -- one of a series of police shootings of unarmed black men that stoked a national outcry over police tactics.

Both trials come during a year riddled with high-profile police shootings of African-Americans that have roiled racial tensions across the country.