Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on Tuesday that she had directed federal prosecutors to seek the penalty for the "premeditated, cold-blooded assassination".

In the press release, Bondi said Mr Thompson's murder "was an act of political violence" and that it "may have posed grave risk of death to additional persons" nearby.

A lawyer for Mr Mangione called the decision "barbaric", accused the government of "defending the broken, immoral, and murderous healthcare industry", and said Mr Mangione was caught in a tug-of-war between state and federal prosecutors.

"While claiming to protect against murder, the federal government moves to commit the pre-meditated, state-sponsored murder of Luigi," said Karen Friedman Agnifilo in a statement.

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In a statement announcing the business deal, Frank Sixt, co-managing director of CK Hutchison, said: "I would like to stress that the transaction is purely commercial in nature and wholly unrelated to recent political news reports concerning the Panama Ports."

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