Alleged D.C. National Guard shooter could face death penalty with new charges

Federal prosecutors filed caller charges Tuesday against a antheral accused of fatally shooting 1 National Guard subordinate and gravely injuring different successful Washington, D.C., opening the doorway for the Justice Department to perchance question the decease punishment if he's convicted.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal was charged with 8 further counts successful a superseding indictment, including execution of a idiosyncratic assisting an serviceman of the United States and discharge of a firearm during a convulsive transgression that causes death, some of which are decease penalty-eligible.

A D.C.-based national expansive assemblage besides separately recovered that Lakanwal "intentionally killed" Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom and attempted to termination much than 1 idiosyncratic — factors that are necessary for prosecutors to question the decease penalty.

The Justice Department said successful a statement its Capital Case Committee volition reappraisal whether to question the decease punishment successful Lakanwal's case.

Lakanwal is facing respective different national attempted execution and firearm charges, on with first-degree murder, battle and weapon possession charges nether D.C. law.

He pleaded not blameworthy connected each counts astatine a proceeding Tuesday. 

His lawyer did not instantly respond to a petition for comment.

Lakanwal — an Afghan nationalist — is accused of killing Beckstrom and critically wounding Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe successful an ambush-style shooting respective blocks from the White House past November. He was besides charged with attempting to kill 2 different unnamed work members who subdued him astatine the country of the attack.

Beckstrom and Wolfe were members of the West Virginia National Guard who were deployed to the streets of D.C. past year arsenic portion of an anti-crime operation.

Lakanwal near Afghanistan and was paroled into the U.S. successful 2021 nether Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era programme designed to rapidly evacuate and vet Afghan nationals during the U.S. military's chaotic withdrawal from the state and the Taliban's instrumentality to power. He aboriginal applied for asylum, and his exertion was granted past year, though his exertion for a greenish paper was inactive pending, a Department of Homeland Security authoritative previously told CBS News.

While successful Afghanistan, Lakanwal worked with the U.S. government, including the CIA, a spokesperson for the bureau said. CBS News has reported that helium led an Afghan subject portion that worked with planetary forces.