WASHINGTON, March 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - In a letter sent to relatives of the victims of September 11 hijackings, U.S. prosecutors said they will seek the death penalty for jailed French national Zacarias Moussaoui, the indicted "20th hijacker", although no detailed evidence linking him to the hijackers has ever been made public, The New York Times said Tuesday. 

U.S. officials were unable to say whether the prosecutors' request would be approved by the U.S. Justice Department, but the daily pointed out that Attorney General John Ashcroft is a strong supporter of capital punishment. 

Ashcroft said last year that Moussaoui "engaged in the same preparation for murder" as the hijackers, reports the Times. 

Government officials said Moussaoui’s defense lawyers were so certain the death penalty would be sought, that they declined to attend a Justice Department hearing where they could have argued that the death penalty was inappropriate. Such a hearing is routine when federal prosecutors are weighing whether to seek the death penalty, the Times reported.

Moussaoui, a 33-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent, is the first and so far only person to be charged with participating in the September 11 attacks against the United States. 

He was arrested in Minnesota for visa violations after a flight school he was training became suspicious. Nineteen hijackers crashed three airliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, with a fourth crashing in Pennsylvania, killing more than 3,000 people in one of the worst deadly attacks in history. 

Ashcroft said Moussaoui "engaged in the same preparation for murder" as his alleged 19 accomplices of the al-Qaeda network. 

Moussaoui is now being held on six counts of conspiracy, four of which can be punishable by execution. The two others carry a sentence of life imprisonment. 

Moussaoui is also accused of training at camps in Afghanistan run by the al-Qaeda network and of receiving money from the same sources in Germany and the Middle East as the hijackers. 

The U.S. prosecutors who will argue their case in a U.S. federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, have to decide by March 29 whether to request a life sentence.  

The report also said prosecutors plan to seek testimony from 30 families of the September 11 attacks in the punishment phase during Moussaoui's trial, which is set to begin this fall. 

"During any death penalty prosecution, the government has the right to present evidence during the sentencing hearing - known as the penalty phase - involving the impact of the crime upon the victims," a letter to relatives said. "We intend to offer such evidence and, therefore, solicit your help in our prosecution," reported the Times. 

The letter went on that, "The individual stories of approximately 30 victims ... will serve as a microcosm of all…Obviously, we cannot tell the story of every victim; otherwise, the trial would last forever." 

News agencies report that in France, Moussaoui's brother, Abd Samad Moussaoui, said Monday he refuses to cooperate with a U.S. official involved in the prosecution. Moussaoui's mother, Aicha Moussaoui, skipped a Tuesday appointment for questioning by the same official, police in France said. 

"I am viscerally shocked by the fact that I, his brother, and my mother and sister were asked to provide evidence in a proceeding that has for its aim to request the death penalty for my brother," Abd Samad told France-Info radio, the BBC reported.