by James Oliphant
The Pentagon Monday announced it had brought charges against a detainee at Guantanamo Bay in connection with the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tanzania.
The Aug. 7, 1998 attack in Dar es Salaam killed 11 and injured hundreds. The government seeks to try Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani before a military tribunal, and if he is found guilty of the most serious charges against him, put him to death.
Specifically, the Defense Department accused Ghailani of:
* Purchasing TNT, detonators and detonation cord on multiple occasions and transporting the bomb components to Dar es Salaam;* Moving the bomb components to various safe houses in and around Dar es Salaam;
* Assisting in the purchase of the truck used in the attack;
* Facilitating the purchase of oxygen cylinder tanks which were used as bomb components;
* Escorting the bomb engineer between Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, Kenya after the bomb had been assembled;
* Scouting the American Embassy with the suicide bomb driver;
* Meeting with co-conspirators in Nairobi, Kenya, shortly before the bombing; and
* Joining the co-conspirators on a flight from Nairobi to Karachi, Pakistan, one day prior to the bombing.
The government also alleges that after the bombing in Tanzania, Ghailani continued to work as an agent of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, serving at one point as a document forger and as a bodyguard for bin Laden.
Under Pentagon procedures, the charges are forwarded to a convening authority, which then make an independent determination as to whether to refer some, all, or none of the charges to trial by a military commission.
Ghailani is the 15th detainee to be charged by the Pentagon under the Military Commissions Act. He has been held at the navy base at Guantanamo since 2004, after he was captured in Pakistan by American and Pakistani forces. He had long been sought by the United States as an alleged conspirator in the Tanzanian bombing.
You can read the unclassified portion of Ghailani's hearing before the Pentagon's Combatant Status Review Tribunal here.
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Comments
We had over 700 people locked up in Guantanamo, some for over 5 years now, and the Pentagon has only charged 15 of them? Shows what pathetic police work they've done to get evidence against any of the people jailed against their will. How many there were sold out by some rival faction for $5000 USD in Afghanistan, for instance?
Posted by: BC | March 31, 2008 5:10 PM
Thats why its called war and not cops and robbers. You can be justified in killing them just because they are wearing an enemy uniform.
Posted by: whatnow | March 31, 2008 6:28 PM
This is real news. So many questions:
Where did they 'nab' this guy?
Which country did they decide not to work for rendition with about this?
What have we done to the above country?
How often and how and by whom was this guy tortured?
If they can do it to them in gitmo, kids, they can do this to each and every one of us.
Watch out!
Posted by: geraldinetoo | April 1, 2008 4:59 AM