about ten to ten that saturday morning, while the sabbath services for going on, it is alleged robert bowesincluding four police offices. he eventually gave himself up offices. he eventually gave himself up and has been awaiting trial ever since. the federal government, because this is a federal case being prosecuted by the government in washington, they are seeking the death penalty for robert bowes. it is something that has been pretty contentious. the defensive try to enter a plea bargain and say we will plead guilty if you give us life without parole. that has been rejected by the prosecution, defensive try to move this trial a number of time. they have also tried to exclude certain parts of the evidence but here we are today, four and a half years on from the trial with the trial beginning. the gilt phase, the first part of this trial determine whether or not robert bowers did it, is likely to be the place where much of the evidence will not be contested because there is very little doubt about intensity in this case. the real crux will come at what is called the penalty phaseif come a

according to witnesses, 50—year—old robert bowes shouted anti—semitic slogans and fired an assault rifleuns for nearly 15 minutes, working his way from room to room in the building. he now faces 63 charges, including hate crimes. lets get more from the bbc�*s gary 0 donoghue who is just outside the courtroom. gary,— this is expected to be a long and gruelling trial, isn't it? it's expected to be at least a couple of months if not more. and as you say, it deals with really three separate congregations that were holding services in the tree of life that i got a bad day. 11 people died from all three of those congregations, two others were injured, and several police officers also wounded by robert bowers, who stands accused of these murders of these crimes. now he is 50 years old. he posted regularly on anti—semitic websites, and posted on the day itself, and the prosecution in its opening statements were laying out some fairly despicable and fairly upsetting details of the kinds of things he was putting on line, the kinds of things he was saying in the synagogue itself and the kinds of th