WASHINGTON — The Pentagon says it is charging a Saudi Arabian with "organizing and directing" the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole — and is asking for the death penalty.

Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartmann, legal adviser to the U.S. military tribunal system, said today charges are being sworn against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, who has been held at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006.

Seventeen American sailors were killed when the Navy destroyer was attacked in the Yemeni port of Aden.

Al-Nashiri told a hearing at Guantanamo Bay last year that he confessed to helping plot the bombing only because he was tortured by U.S. interrogators.