Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

Majid Khan

al-Qaeda

Home Front: WoT

Pakistani

In Jug

20040530

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India-Pakistan

US transfers two Guantanamo Bay detainees to Pakistan

2023-02-24

[GEO.TV] The United States has transferred two brothers from the Guantanamo Bay US detention facility in Cuba to Pakistain, bringing the total number of people held at Guantanamo down to 32, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

The Guantanamo camp was established by Republican President George W Bush in 2002 to house foreign terrorism suspects following the 2001 hijacked plane attacks on New York and the Pentagon that killed about 3,000 people.

It came to symbolise the excesses of the US "war on terror" because of harsh interrogation methods that critics have said amounted to torture.

There were 40 detainees when President Joe The Big Guy Biden
Joe <q>The Big Guy</q> Biden

...46th president of the U.S. The nincompoop who dumped Afghanistan. The copier doesdn't exist that could reelect him....
, a Democrat, took office in 2021. Biden has said he hopes to close the facility. The federal government is barred by law from transferring Guantanamo detainees to US mainland prisons.

On Thursday, the Pentagon announced the repatriation of Abdul Rabbani and Mohammed Rabbani to Pakistain.

Both were arrested in 2002. Abdul Rabbani was an al-Qaeda controller while Mohammed Rabbani was a financial and travel controller for prominent al-Qaeda leaders, according to the Pentagon's website.

"The United States appreciates the willingness of the Government of Pakistain and other partners to support ongoing US efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility," the Pentagon said in a statement.

A total of 32 detainees remain, of whom 18 are eligible for transfer, the Pentagon said in its statement.

Reacting to the development, Senator Mushtaq Ahmed Khan of Jamat-e-Islami welcomed their transfer to Pakistain, saying the two brothers were detained without any case.

...no case except being Al Qaeda Big Turbans, but no one objects to that nowadays.

"Another good news. Ahmed Ghulam Rabbani and Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani have reached Islamabad airport after being freed from Guantanamo Bay. They were imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for 21 years despite being innocent. There was no trial, no court proceedings, no charges against them. Congratulations on their release. Thank you Senate of Pakistain."

Update from Al Monitor at 9:50 p.m. ET — late in the day, but not worth giving you an entire article to read tomorrow, dear Reader:

Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani, 55, and Mohammed Ahmed Ghulam Rabbani, 53, were captured in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002 and held in CIA custody in Afghanistan before they were transferred to the offshore US prison in Cuba in 2004.

The brothers were born in Saudi Arabia and are ethnically Burmese.

This makes their Pakistani citizenship puzzling, but I suppose if Pakistan wants them, they all deserve to enjoy the result.

Their departure brings the remaining number of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to 32. At its peak in 2003, the prison held nearly 680 prisoners.

Shortly after taking office, the Biden administration said it planned to close the controversial detention center, which opened in 2002 and has since been used to house more than 700 foreign inmates suspected of ties to al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Earlier this month, Pakistani detainee Majid Khan was transferred to Belize following the completion of his sentence.

Intense pushback from Congress prevented former President Barack Obama from making good on a 2008 campaign promise to close Guantanamo, despite an executive order issued on his second day in office.

Former President Donald Trump signed a 2018 executive order to keep it open, citing the risk of recidivism among the prisoners. Just one detainee was released under his administration — a Saudi man who pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges and was transferred to Saudi Arabian custody in 2018 to serve out the remainder of his sentence.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Pakistani Gitmo prisoner transferred to Belize

2023-02-03

[Dawn] The Biden administration, the guys that caused the debacle in Afghanistan

...knaves, footpads, and adjusters employed by the Biden Crime Family. They leave a trail of havoc everywhere they turn their attention, be it the nation's borders, the Keystone XL Pipeline, or epidemics, sometimes on purpose, most times through sheer arrogant ineptitude. They learnt this stuff in college, you know...
on Thursday transferred a detainee from its Guantanamo Bay prison facility in Cuba to Belize and is preparing to transfer at least two more in the coming weeks. All three are Pak citizens.

Majid Khan left Guantanamo early Thursday and arrived in Belize several hours later. He is the first detainee to be resettled by the Biden administration and one of the few to be sent to a location in the Western Hemisphere.

The other two expected to be released soon are Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani and Mohammad Ahmad Ghulam Rabbani.

Possibly they are in the Rantburg archives under slight different spelling or a different configuration of their names.

"I have been given a second chance in life and I intend to make the most of it," said Khan in a statement issued through his legal team. "I promise all of you, especially the people of Belize, that I will be a productive, law-abiding member of society."

Hopefully he really did have a change of heart instead of spewing taqiyya like squid ink before returning to old habits.

The only known legal US resident at Guantanamo, Khan was born in Saudi Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. Fifteen of the nineteen WTC hijackers were Saudis, and most major jihadi commanders were Saudis, to include Osama bin Laden. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman quietly folded that tent in 2016, doing terrible things to the guys running it, and has since been dragging the kingdom into the current century...
. He was granted asylum in the US in 1998, while attending high school near Baltimore but remained a Pak citizen.

He returned to Pakistain in 2002 and, according to a US Defence Department detainee assessment, joined Al Qaeda and became a direct subordinate to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), Al Qaeda’s senior operational planner and the principal architect of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Khan was arrested in Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
in March 2003 and taken to a CIA black site where he was subjected to sleep deprivation, an ice water bath, and forced rectal feeding and rehydration. The chairperson of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein
...Dem Senator-for-Life from Caliphornica. She has been a politician since about the time she was weaned. Feinstein was the author of the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban, and tried it a second time in 2012. Feinstein has chaired the Select Committee on Intelligence since 2009. At age 89.53632, Feinstein is the oldest currently serving United States Senator...
, called the treatment torture. In September 2006, then-President George W. Bush announced that Khan was one of 14 "high value detainees" being transferred from CIA detention facilities to Guantanamo Bay to face the military tribunal system.

In 2012, Khan pled guilty to terrorism-related charges and was sentenced to 10 years detention. That sentence ended March 1, 2022. Khan still has family in the US, but US federal law does not allow Guantanamo detainees to be resettled in the country.

Aliya Hussain, an advocacy program manager at the Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, who has worked on Khan’s case for more than a decade, said, "Today did not seem possible when we started. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the unwavering commitment of everyone who has represented Majid."

Update from Wikipedia at 8:30 a.m. ET on the name Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani: alternate names on Guantanamo Bay paperwork: Abdul Al-Rahim Ghulam Rabbani and Abu Rahim Moulana Gulam Rabbani, which are also not in the Rantburg archives. He was born in Mecca approximately 1969 to a Pakistani family that spent many years in Saudi Arabia, at some point joined Al Qaeda and trained in Afghanistan. He and his brother were captured and taken to the CIA black site called the salt pit, then turned over to GITMO in 2004. Under President Obama’s rules for GITMO, Mr. Rabbani was one of 71 prisoners deemed too innocent to charge but too dangerous to release, which makes no sense to me.
Wikipedia on brother Mohammad Ahmad Ghulam Rabbani: Mohammad Ahmad Ghulam Rabbani was born in Medina in 1970, went home to Karachi in the 1990s, where he claims he worked as a driver and guide for visiting Arabs, and claims that this association was the reason the authorities handed him over to the Americans... or possibly it was a case of mistaken identity. That jihadism is often a family affair he could be suspected of does not seem to have occurred to him, and his file accuses him of the same things as he elder brother. He spent two years with his brother at various CIA black sites before being sent with him to GITMO in 2004.

Link

Home Front: WoT

CIA Torture Finally Rebuked, By Military Jury

2021-11-08

[Consotium News] The New York Times reported last week that a military jury at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo issued a sharp rebuke against the C.I.A.’s treatment of al-Qaeda prisoner Majid Khan, calling the Agency’s torture program "a stain on the moral fiber of America."

The jury recommended that Khan receive a 26-year sentence, the shortest possible under the court’s rules. Seven of the eight jurors—all U.S. military officers—then hand-wrote a letter to the military judge urging clemency for Khan.

The sentencing hearing, and Khan’s two hours of graphic testimony, marked the first time that details of the C.I.A. torture program were laid bare in public.

Khan testified that during the course of his interrogations, after he was captured in Pakistan in 2003, he told the C.I.A. "literally everything" he knew. He was truthful with the information, but "the more I told them, the more they tortured me." Khan said that his only alternative was to make up information about threats, anything to get his interrogators to stop torturing him. When the information then didn’t pan out, Khan was tortured yet again.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Clemency Request for Guantanamo Inmate 'Enlightening,' Hambali's Lawyer Says

2021-11-07

[BenarNews] A Guantanamo Bay inmate’s testimony before a U.S. military tribunal last week about being tortured at a secret CIA site and the jury’s clemency recommendation tied to that account may have implications for the trial of three Southeast Asian terror suspects incarcerated at the notorious prison, lawyers and activists say.

Majid Khan, who acknowledged having served as a money courier leading up to the 2003 bombing of the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, was sentenced to 26 years in prison last week. Before his sentencing, he testified in graphic detail about torture he experienced at an overseas "black site" run by the Central Intelligence Agency after his arrest that year until he was transferred to the U.S. military prison in Cuba in 2006.

"I thought I was going to die," Khan, a Pak national, said while reading from a 39-page statement during his sentencing hearing at Guantanamo on Oct. 28, according to the News Agency that Dare Not be Named. "The more I cooperated and told them, the more I was tortured."

Link

Southeast Asia

Clemency Request for Guantanamo Inmate Could Affect Southeast Asian Suspects’ Trial

2021-11-06

[BenarNews] A Guantanamo Bay inmate’s testimony before a U.S. military tribunal last week about being tortured at a secret CIA site and the jury’s clemency recommendation tied to that account have implications for the trial of three Southeast Asian terror suspects incarcerated at the notorious prison, lawyers and activists say.

Majid Khan, who acknowledged having served as a money courier leading up to the 2003 bombing of the Marriott hotel in Jakarta, was sentenced to 26 years in prison last week. Before his sentencing, he testified in graphic detail about torture he allegedly experienced at an overseas "black site" run by the Central Intelligence Agency after his arrest that year until he was transferred to the U.S. military prison in Cuba in 2006.

"I thought I was going to die," Khan said while reading from a 39-page statement during his sentencing hearing at Guantanamo on Oct. 28, according to the News Agency that Dare Not be Named. "The more I cooperated and told them, the more I was tortured."

Link

Home Front: WoT

Timeline of Islamicist attacks for New York, 2001 to date

2013-04-19

Barry Rubin, posting over at Yid with Lid, posts an interesting timeline of attacks, planned and foiled, for the New York area since 9/11. When people ask "why would Chechnyan youths come to America and plan terror attacks?", the answer is that of the scorpion to the frog: it's what they do.

Full credit to Barry for the list and a big thank you to the Yid. Barry, in case you're wondering, is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal.

Since September 11, 2001, there have been 18 known terrorist attacks planned in New York City and they all have something in common: the worldview of the perpetrators. In some cases, they were called off by al-Qaeda:

In 2002, Iyman Faris, a U.S.-based al-Qaeda operative, planned to cut the Brooklyn Bridge's support cables at the direction of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

In 2003, al-Qaeda had planned to release cyanide gas in New York City's subway system and attack other public places.

In 2006, Uzair Paracha, a Brooklyn resident, was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after he was convicted of attempting to help al-Qaeda operative Majid Khan enter the United States to attack gas tanks. Paracha's father worked with al-Qaida to smuggle explosives - including possibly nuclear weapons - into the United States using the New York office of Paracha's import-export business.

Dhiren Barot (aka Issa al-Hindi) was sentenced to life in prison by a United Kingdom court in 2006 after pleading guilty to planning to attack several targets both in the UK and the U.S., including the New York Stock Exchange, Citigroup's headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, and the Prudential Building in Newark, NJ.

Shahawar Matin Siraj and James Elshafay plotted in 2004 to place explosive devices in the Herald Square subway station in Manhattan.

In July 2006, the FBI revealed it had uncovered a plot involving an attack on a PATH commuter train tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey by Islamists, the placement of suicide bombers on trains, and the destruction of the retaining wall separating the Hudson River from the World Trade Center site in the hopes of causing massive flooding in the city's Financial District.

Beginning in 2006, four Islamists plotted to detonate the jet-fuel storage tanks and supply lines for John F. Kennedy Airport in order to cause wide-scale destruction and economic disruption in an attack they intended to dwarf 9/11.

In a series of three trials spanning 2008 to 2010, eight Muslims were convicted in Britain of attempting to simultaneously detonate explosives in seven airliners traveling from London to several North American metropolises, including New York.

Bryant Neal Vinas, of Long Island, New York, traveled to Pakistan with an intent to die fighting against American forces in Afghanistan. In summer of 2008, Vinas spoke to al-Qaeda about targeting the Long Island Railroad using a suitcase bomb that would be left in a car and set to detonate.

In May 2009, four Islamists placed what they believed were functioning bombs outside of Jewish targets in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale and additionally constructed plans to fire missiles at military transport planes at Stewart International Airport near Newburgh, NY.

In September 2009, the New York City subway system was targeted for attack by three individuals supporting al-Qaeda who planned to set off bombs in the subway during rush hour shortly after the eighth anniversary of 9/11.

Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-American residing in Connecticut, attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square on May 1, 2010.

Ahmed Ferhani, an Queens resident born in Algeria, along with Mohammad Mamdouh, a Moroccan immigrant, were arrested in May 2011 in an NYPD operation in which Ferhani purchased a hand grenade, three semi-automatic pistols and ammunition from an undercover detective. NYPD's investigation into the pair revealed their desire to attack a synagogue in New York City.

Jose Pimentel, a native of the Dominican Republic and convert to Islam, was charged with plotting to detonate bombs in and around New York City in November 2011.

Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, a 21-year-old native of Bangladesh residing in the U.S. on a student visa, was arrested in October 2012 as he attempted to remotely detonate what he believed was a bomb in front of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in lower Manhattan.

Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi, Pakistan-born brothers, were arrested by federal authorities in Florida in November 2012 for charges relating to a plan to bomb popular New York City landmarks including Times Square, Wall Street and city theaters.

Jesse Morton, a New York City-based Muslim convert, was apprehended in Morocco and pleaded guilty in February 2012 to conspiring to solicit murder, making threatening communications, and using the Internet to place others in fear, most notably through his website Revolution Muslim.

Alessa and Carlos Almonte, both of New Jersey, pleaded guilty in March 2011 to conspiring to murder persons outside of the United States on behalf of al-Shabaab, the Somalia-based, al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorist group.

And even this list doesn't include the 2007 plot to attack nearby Fort Dix by a half-dozen Islamists since that was handled by the New Jersey authorities.

Link

India-Pakistan

Malik conveys Pakistan's concern to US on drone attacks

2012-10-06

[Dawn] Pakistain on Friday called for a "common counterterrorism strategy against the common enemy," as Interior Minister Rehman Malik
Pak politician, Interior Minister under the Gilani government. Malik is a former Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) intelligence officer who rose to head the FIA during Benazir Bhutto's second tenure. Malik was tossed from his FIA job in 1998 after documenting the breath-taking corruption of the Sharif family. By unhappy coincidence Nawaz Sharif became PM at just that moment and Malik moved to London one step ahead of the button men. He had to give up the interior ministry job because he held dual Brit citizenship.
conveyed Islamabad's concerns to senior US officials on drone strikes in the tribal areas.

"We have a common enemy and we must have a common strategy to fight this enemy -- Pakistain is committed with the international community in this fight -and we will hit them hard," Malik said, standing alongside US Special envoy Marc Grossman after their meeting.

At the same time, Malik acknowledged in a media interaction that there are reservations on the two sides, despite the fact that both have been victims of terror and have been fighting common enemy in Orcs and similar vermin along the Afghan border.

"Our side has conveyed our concerns regarding drone attacks -- the people of Pakistain have been voicing this and we hope that this voice of the people of Pakistain will be heard," said the minister.

The interior minister, during his two-day visit, is scheduled to meet Secretary of State

Hillary Clinton
... sometimes described as the Smartest Woman in the World and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another Frederick T. Frelinghuysen ...
, Secretary Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and FBI Director Robert Mueller and discuss counterterrorism cooperation in a working group meeting with the US officials.

Grossman, who is US special representative for Pakistain and Afghanistan, and Malik also discussed the issue of combating improvised explosives devices, which have killed soldiers on both sides.

Malik said Pakistain is implementing a national counter-IED strategy to curb the cross-border movement of material ammonium nitrade, which is also used in fertilizers -- that Orcs and similar vermin use in the devices and has succeeded considerably.

"We have taken every possible measure -- we are an agrarian country, and fertilizers are important. What we have done we have regulated the movement of fertilizers -- we have also strengthened the (relevant) Punishment Act -- so administrative and all other steps are being taken."

Grossman for his part recognized the sacrifices Pakistain has made in fighting terror. "Americans recognize who are victims of terrorism --the Americans are victims but so many Paks have bit the dust, so many have given their lives fighting terrorism so this issue of counterterrorism is very important between the United States and Pakistain," Grossman said.

At the meeting with Grossman, the interior minister was accompanied at the meeting by Najibullah Khan Additional Secretary Interior, bigwigs and diplomats including Faruk Amil DG Foreign Affairs and Deputy chef de mission in Washington Asad Majid Khan. Director Pakistain Affairs Tim Lenderking assisted Marc Grossman.

Link

Home Front: WoT

9/11 Mastermind Set To Face US Military Court

2012-03-12

WASHINGTON: Nine years after his arrest in Pakistain, self-proclaimed 9/11 criminal mastermind Khaled Sheikh Mohammed could soon be back in court for the much-awaited "trial of the century."
So much for the "right to a speedy" trial. 'Course, if the concept of "justice" came into it he'd have been pushing up daisies within a month of going into our custody.
After years of delays, a significant step took place last week when a former aide to Mohammed, Majid Khan, accepted a plea deal with US authorities that will require him to testify against other terror suspects at a tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

More than a decade after the 2001 attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead on US soil, the 46-year-old bully boy known simply as "KSM" remains the ultimate figurehead in a legal battle fought by two successive US administrations.

President Barack Obama
Why can't I just eat my waffle?...
"can claim credit for killing (Osama) bin Laden and (al-Qaeda holy man Anwar) Al-Awlaqi, so nailing KSM would complete the hat trick and help quiet the conservative fearmongers who say he's weak on terrorism," former chief US military prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis told AFP. Victory in the trial could prove critical to Obama this year in his re-election bid, where he faces Republicans critical of his approach to terrorism.

The Democratic president had sought to hold a trial for KSM and his four accused accomplices in New York, just steps from the Ground Zero site where the World Trade Center's twin towers fell. But congressional Republicans put an end to those plans by blocking the transfer of terrorism suspects to the United States.

Correctly understanding that the entire trial would be a farce, especially since the Attorney General guaranteed a conviction. That sort of certainty hasn't been seen since the show trials in 1930s Moscow...

The five September 11 defendants, known as the "Guantanamo Five" for their incarceration at the US naval base in southern Cuba, will face a trial under special military tribunals created by the George W. Bush administration after the attacks. Procedures for the military tribunals, also known as commissions, were modified by the B.O. regime.

KSM, along with Walid bin Attash of Soddy Arabia, Yemen's Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Pakistain's Ammar al-Baluchi or Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mustafa al-Hawsawi of Soddy Arabia, all face possible death penalties.

The 88-page indictment lists 2,976 murder counts for each of the victims of the coordinated attacks.

"Let's get rid of the alleged. KSM has admitted (the crimes) many times," said Michael Mukasey, who served as US attorney general under Bush.

KSM's first confessions were made when he was subjected 183 times to a simulated drowning method known as waterboarding and other so-called "enhanced" interrogation techniques at a secret CIA prison after his March 2003 capture. But "no statement obtained as a result of coercion can be used" in a military commissions trial, chief prosecutor Brigadier General Mark Martins said in an interview.

We won't need them. And the info that KSM provided saved lives...

Although KSM has since repeated his confessions, the prosecution needs to obtain statements that are legally admissible in court.

This is where Khan's awaited testimony fills the gap. The Pak national, who lived legally in America and graduated from a US high school, pleaded guilty at Guantanamo to a reduced charge of "conspiracy" to commit terrorism in exchange for a lighter sentence. "If Khan provides information on KSM and others, as has been suggested was part of the deal, it will no doubt speed up the prosecutions," said Karen Greenberg, a terrorism expert at Fordham Law School. With Khan's testimony in hand, KSM can be officially tried before a Guantanamo judge, which observers say could take place at any time.

The person who presides over the commissions, a judge known as the convening authority, now has "everything he needs to make the decision but he's not under a timeline," Martins said.

Baluchi has requested that he be spared the death penalty, saying he played a lesser role in the attacks. But, following a vote in Congress, if the Guantanamo Five plead guilty, "they're allowed to be executed," said Adam Thurschwell, a general counsel in charge of defending Guantanamo detainees.

Baluchi's lawyer, James Connell, said it is the convening authority's choice to decide a date for the trial. "We don't want them to rush into a decision but on the other hand, we don't want them to drag their feet," he added.

Although the defendants might make pre-trial appearances soon, the crucial trial could be months away. "KSM wanted to use the rest of the trial as an opportunity to deliver a diatribe against US policy," said appellate attorney David Rivkin.

KSM himself has declared that he wants to die and become a martyr.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Pakistani pleads guilty in key Guantanamo case

2012-03-01

[Dawn] US NAVAL BASE AT GUANTANAMO BAY: Pak national Majid Khan pleaded guilty Wednesday at a Guantanamo military tribunal in a landmark case that could speed the trials of September 11 suspects.

Majid Khan, 32, a protege of September 11 criminal mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, murder and attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, and to material support for terrorism and espionage.

Dressed in a dark suit and pink tie, he spoke in English without an interpreter in delivering his plea.

Khan, who has spent the last nine years behind bars, faced possible life in prison but is expected to receive a reduced sentence as part of a plea agreement.

In exchange for the lighter sentence, he will testify against other "high value" detainees, including Mohammed and four others alleged to have taken part in the 2001 attacks.

Many of the terms of the plea agreement remain classified. The Washington Post reported that the military plans to delay Khan's sentencing for four years to ensure he complies with the agreement.

"It's part of a strategy of building more solid cases against the handful of defendants that the government plans to try before the commissions," said Jonathan Hafetz, a lawyer who has represented other Guantanamo detainees.

More than 10 years after the September 11 attacks, Mohammed and four co-defendants accused of plotting them are still awaiting trial at the prison, part of a US naval base in Cuba.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Guantanamo Bay soccer field pricey addition to prison

2012-02-29

The military unveiled a $744,000 soccer field yesterday, a dusty enclosure with two-toned gravel and fences topped by barbed wire all designed as a quality-of-life improvement for cooperative captives.

The goals were missing, but the military had erected two guard towers, lights and surveillance cameras at the site outside a building called Camp 6, where the Pentagon imprisons about 120 of the 171 detainees.

Prison officers brought about a dozen visiting journalists to the 28,000-square-foot field yesterday, a day before the arraignment of Majid Khan. The former Baltimore resident has agreed to plead guilty to war crimes and testify against other captives in future military commissions.

While the tour was under way, the Pentagon unsealed part of a secret deal with Khan that postpones his sentencing until 2016.

Khan, who turned 32 yesterday, is accused of acting as a courier to carry $50,000 from Pakistan to Thailand for use in the 2003 suicide bombing of a Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia. Eleven people were killed, and dozens more were wounded.

Khan also is accused of researching U.S. gas stations as targets for an al-Qaida leader, and at one point, donning a fake bomb vest in a test of his willingness to kill himself and then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Link

Home Front: WoT

Pakistani Majid Khan pleads guilty in key Guantanamo case

2012-02-29

Pakistani national Majid Khan pleaded guilty on Wednesday at a Guantanamo military tribunal in a landmark case that could speed the trials of September 11 suspects.

Khan, 32, a protégé of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, pleaded guilty to conspiracy, murder and attempted murder in violation of the laws of war, and to material support for terrorism and espionage.

Dressed in a dark suit and pink tie, he spoke in fluent English without the aid of an interpreter, denying he every met or spoke to slain al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden but admitting to taking part in a "conspiracy" in Pakistan, Thailand and Indonesia.

Khan, who has spent the last nine years behind bars, faced possible life in prison but will receive a reduced sentence of no more than 25 years as part of a plea agreement that requires him to co-operate with US authorities.

Link

India-Pakistan

US captive charged with trying to kill Perv

2012-02-16

MIAMI: US prosecutors in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals filed charges on Tuesday against a Pakistani who grew up outside Baltimore, alleging he plotted with al Qaeda to attack US targets and assassinate former president Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf.

The charges against defendant Majid Khan allege that in 2002, he donned an explosives vest and sat in a mosque in Karachi, where Musharraf was expected. He planned to blow himself up and kill Musharraf, but the plot was foiled when the president failed to show up, the charges said.

Prosecutors allege Khan, 31, was an al Qaeda operative who reported directly to Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the self-described mastermind of the September 11 attacks. Khan is accused of plotting with Khalid Sheikh to blow up underground gasoline storage tanks in the US attacks that were apparently not carried out. Khan is also accused of conspiring with al Qaeda operatives in Indonesia to bomb bars, cafes and nightclubs frequented by Westerners.

Khan, a Pakistani with legal US residence, moved with his family to Baltimore in 1996 and graduated from high school there three years later.

Shouldn't he be in Guantanamo?

Link

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