July 11 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said in an interview with CNN that he would pursue the death penalty against Osama bin Laden if the al-Qaeda leader is captured.

``If he was captured alive, then we would make a decision to bring the full weight of not only U.S. justice but world justice down on him,'' Obama said in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria. ``I've said this before, I am not a cheerleader for the death penalty. I believe it has to be reserved for only the most heinous crimes, but I certainly think plotting and engineering the death of 3,000 Americans justifies such an approach.''

Obama said in the interview, to be broadcast July 13, that any such scenario would be ``a big hypothetical'' until bin Laden is captured, CNN reported.

``Let's catch him first,'' Obama said in the CNN interview. ``The fact that we have failed to seriously go after al-Qaeda for the last five years because of the distraction of Iraq, I think we are now seeing the consequences of that in Afghanistan.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Dolmetsch in New York at cdolmetsch@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 11, 2008 16:35 EDT