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Two Guantanamo prisoners charged as war-on-terror prosecutions begin

"It's not necessarily that these are the worst of the worst or the most egregious cases."

US defense official

The US has charged two suspected al-Qaeda members with conspiracy to commit war crimes, the first Guantanamo Bay prisoners to face criminal charges, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

The Defense Department said Ali Hamza Ahmed Sulayman al Bahlul of Yemen and Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al Qosi of Sudan were charged on Saturday with a single count each and would be brought before a military tribunal in the first US trials of their kind since World War II.

Both men, described as close associates and former bodyguards for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, have been held for two years at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where about 650 foreign terrorism suspects are imprisoned.

Human rights and legal activists have criticized the US for holding prisoners there without charge, while excoriating the rules established for the military tribunal trials as rigged to result in convictions. The Pentagon has promised "full and fair" trials.

Pentagon spokesman Major John Smith said that military prosecutors did not plan to seek the death penalty against either man if convicted, but said they could face sentences of up to life in prison.

The Pentagon said trial dates had not been selected, nor had the panel of US military officers been set to hear the cases. The trials are slated to be held at the Guantanamo base.

Al Bahlul and al Qosi were charged with willfully and knowingly conspiring with bin Laden and other al-Qaeda figures to commit terrorism and murder, attack civilians and destroy property.

The Pentagon said al Qosi was a key accountant for bin Laden, dating back to when the al-Qaeda chief lived in Sudan, and signed checks on bin Laden's behalf. The Pentagon said bin Laden handpicked al Qosi as a bodyguard and used him as a personal driver.

The Pentagon called al Bahlul a "key al-Qaeda propagandist" who produced videos "glorifying the murder of Americans," including the 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen, in order to recruit and inspire other al-Qaeda members to attack Americans, the US and other countries.

The Pentagon said that on Sept. 11, 2001, bin Laden directed al Bahlul to set up a satellite connection so they could watch news coverage of the attacks on the US for which al-Qaeda is blamed, but he was unable to do so.

A US defense official said the decision to make the two men the first to face charges should not be interpreted as meaning they were the most dangerous Guantanamo prisoners.

"It's not necessarily that these are the worst of the worst or the most egregious cases. These are the cases that were ready for charging at this point," the official said.

They are among six men US President George W. Bush last July named as eligible for trials before tribunals, formally called military commissions.

Two months after the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush authorized military trials of non-US citizens caught in what he calls the global war on terrorism.

Most Guantanamo prisoners were captured in Afghanistan.

Wendy Patten, Human Rights Watch US advocacy director, said rules for the tribunals undercut defense lawyers and excluded an independent judicial review.

The Pentagon on Feb. 6 assigned military lawyers to represent al Bahlul and al Qosi, but they still have not met with the men. Two other prisoners have also been given lawyers.
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