WASHINGTON (Sputnik) – Prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Dylann Roof Storm, the 21-year-old man charged with massacring nine African-Americans attending a Bible study in Charleston, South Carolina, according to court documents filed on Thursday, WCBD news in Charleston reported.
Following the killings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on June 17, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley called for Roof to face the death penalty.
The incident also sparked a national debate around the removal of the Confederate flag, symbolic of America’s slave owning past, prompting the state to remove the flag from its Capitol grounds shortly afterwards.
A federal grand jury in South Carolina returned a 33 count indictment against Roof, charging him with federal hate crimes and firearms charges for killing African-American parishioners at the church because of their race and in order to interfere with their exercise of their religion.
