DEATH PENALTY OK'D IN UNABOMBER CASE.

Byline: David Stout The New York Times

Attorney General Janet Reno authorized prosecutors Thursday to seek the death penalty for the suspect in the Unabomber case despite arguments that executing him would be an injustice and devastating to the relatives who turned him in.

Reno announced her decision without comment, notifying federal prosecutors in Newark, N.J., and Sacramento that they could move to put the man, Theodore Kaczynski, to death if he is convicted of murders committed in their jurisdictions. The U.S. attorneys in those cities immediately filed papers in U.S. District Court declaring their intent.

In nearly identical language, the prosecutor in Newark, Faith Hochberg, and her counterpart in Sacramento, Paul Seave, said the death penalty was justified because the defendant had intentionally and methodically killed and maimed people, had shown no remorse and had ``a low potential for rehabilitation.''

Kaczynski is believed by the authorities to be the elusive suspect in the Unabomber case who killed three people and wounded 23 others by sending letter bombs through the mail to seemingly random targets from 1978 to 1995.

The government's decision to seek his death was attacked by Anthony Bisceglie, a lawyer from Washington who represents the defendant's brother, David, and his mother, Wanda. Bisceglie called the decision ``a terrible mistake'' and said Kaczynski's brother and mother were devastated on learning the news and were in seclusion.

In the months since Theodore Kaczynski's arrest at his remote cabin in Montana on April 3, 1996, his brother and mother have waged a campaign through numerous interviews across the country, including with The New York Times, to obtain merciful treatment for him.

They have portrayed him as a deeply disturbed man whose emotions and powerful intellect were warped by forces beyond his control. The horrific acts he is accused of would never have been committed by the Theodore Kaczynski they knew many years ago, they insisted.

The government's decision Thursday left David Kaczynski very shaken, Bisceglie said, recounting how his client had agonized for months after beginning to suspect that his brilliant but reclusive brother might be the suspect in the Unabomber case.

``But for David, this case would not have been solved,'' Bisceglie said.

Months earlier, while reading the bomber's 35,000-word manifesto, parts of which were reprinted by The New York Times and The Washington Post, David Kaczynski had found the words and thoughts hauntingly like his brother's and had set in motion the events that eventually led to Theodore Kaczynski's capture.

With the government's decision to seek the death penalty rather than life in prison without parole, Bisceglie said, David Kaczynski and his mother are denied the closure that they had hoped for.

``All he wanted was for his brother to live,'' the lawyer said, referring to David Kaczynski and suggesting that the government's harshness might dissuade other people from reporting relatives they suspect of dangerous activities.

Bisceglie said he and David Kaczynski had a long meeting in January with the death penalty review committee of the Justice Department and asked that the defendant's life be spared.

``I think this was a tough decision for the department,'' Bisceglie said.

Reno has said she is personally opposed to the death penalty, but she has pledged to enforce it and has, in fact, authorized it in numerous cases. A spokesman for the Justice Department, Bert Brandenburg, said Reno would have no comment on her decision.

Theodore Kaczynski, who will soon turn 55, is jailed in Sacramento awaiting trial. His federal public defender, Quin Denvir of Sacramento, declined through an aide to comment on the government's decision.