FORT MEADE, Md.: A military jury imposed a sentence of 26 years Friday on a former Maryland man who admitted joining al-Qaida and has been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center. But under a plea deal, the man could be released as soon as next year because of his cooperation with U.S. authorities.
The sentencing of Majid Khan is the culmination of the first trial by military commission for one of the 14 so-called high-value detainees who were sent to the U.S. naval base in Cuba in 2006 after being held in a clandestine network of overseas CIA detention facilities and subjected to the harsh interrogation program developed in response to the 9/11 attacks.
Khan, a 41-year-old citizen of Pakistan who came to the U.S. in the 1990s and graduated from high school near Baltimore, earlier pleaded guilty to war crimes charges that included conspiracy and murder for his involvement in al-Qaida plots such as the deadly bombing of the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, in August 2003.
The jury of eight military officers was required to reach a sentence of 25 to 40 years. Jurors heard of Khans extensive cooperation with U.S. authorities following his guilty plea and heard a two-hour statement from the prisoner describing his brutal CIA interrogation and captivity in the three years before he came to Guantanamo.
In addition to the sentence, the jury foreman said seven of the eight jurors had drafted a letter to Pentagon legal authorities recommending clemency to the defendant, which is an option under the military commission legal system.
A pre-trial agreement means he could be released as early as February and no later than February 2025, at which point he would be resettled in an as-yet to be determined third country. He cannot return to Pakistan.
Despite that agreement, the prosecution urged the jury to recommend a sentence at the higher end of the range as the defense urged jurors to consider Khans cooperation, contrition and the brutal conditions of his captivity.
Since the commission of these crimes, Majid is a different person, said Army Maj. Michael Lyness, a defense attorney. Majid Khan is reformed and deserving of your mercy.
Army Col. Walter Foster, the lead prosecutor, sought to cast doubt on Khans story of being led astray by radical Islam as a young man. He conceded the prisoner had also experienced extremely rough treatment at the hands of the CIA, but pivoted to remind the court of the 11 people killed in the Marriott bombing.
He is still alive and with us today, a luxury that the dead and victims of the J.W. Marriott bombing do not have, Foster said.
Khans cooperation is expected to help with other war crimes cases at Guantanamo, one involving five men held there who are charged with planning and aiding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Such cases have been bogged down for years in the pretrial stage at the base and become one of the obstacles to closing the detention enter.
____
The Associated Press viewed proceedings at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay from a video feed at Fort Meade, Maryland.
Disclaimer: This post has been auto-published from an agency feed without any modifications to the text and has not been reviewed by an editor
Read all the Latest News , Breaking News and IPL 2022 Live Updates here.
Comments
0 comment