US transfers Guantanamo Bay detainee to Belize

The United States has actually moved a Guantanamo Bay detainee who was founded guilty of terrorism offenses in 2012 to Belize, the Pentagon revealed on Thursday.

Majid Khan, a Pakistani resident and United States homeowner, who went to high school in Baltimore, was caught in 2003 and was held for more than 3 years at secret CIA jails referred to as “black websites.” He was moved to the United States penal institution in Cuba in 2006.

” Majid Khan pled guilty prior to an Armed force Commission in February 2012. Pursuant to the regards to the plea arrangement, Khan promised to comply with the U.S. Federal government and honored his cooperation dedication,” the Pentagon stated in a declaration. “He was sentenced in 2021 to a regard to confinement for over ten years with credit for the years he invested complying with U.S. workers. He has actually consequently finished his sentence.”.

The Biden administration has actually guaranteed to close the jail which presently holds 34 detainees, 20 of whom are qualified for transfer, according to the Pentagon’s Thursday declaration.

Khan resided in the United States from 1996 to early 2002 and was believed of helping al Qaeda in preparing attacks on the United States and in other places. Authorities thought he signed up with al Qaeda after the attacks on September 11, 2001.

He was implicated of working for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who has actually been called the mastermind behind 9/11, and conspiring with him to explode underground tank at filling station in the United States; taking a trip to Pakistan from Baltimore with fraudulently acquired travel files; taking a trip to Thailand to provide $50,000 of al Qaeda funds to an affiliate group, which was later on utilized to money a 2003 battle of the J.W. Marriot Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia; and taping a martyr video and preparing to bomb a mosque where Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was expected to be. The strategy eventually stopped working.

In 2012, Khan was condemned of conspiracy, spying, murder in offense of the law of war, tried murder in offense of the law of war, and supplying product for terrorism.

In 2021 a United States military panel requested for clemency in his case, stating in a letter acquired by CNN that the treatment Khan has actually experienced while in United States custody over the previous nearly twenty years was “an affront to American worths and idea of justice.”.

” Although designated an ‘alien unprivileged opponent belligerent,’ not technically paid for the rights of United States people, the total neglect for the fundamental principles upon which the Constitution was established is an affront to American worths and principles of justice,” the letter stated.

According to the Defense Department release, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin informed Congress of his intent to move Khan to Belize on December 22.