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U.S. failed to plan for Guantanamo convicts - judge
Reuters - Thursday, August 12
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By Jane Sutton
GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba - The U.S. military ignored orders to develop a plan specifying how and where prisoners would serve their sentences after conviction in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals, a judge said on Wednesday.
The absence of any written policy threw a glitch into this week's sentencing hearing for Osama bin Laden's former cook, who pleaded guilty last month to conspiring with al Qaeda and providing material support for terrorism.
It also bolstered frequent defence criticism that the rules for the terrorism trials at the Guantanamo Bay naval base are being made up as they go.
The former cook, Sudanese prisoner Ibrahim al Qosi, wanted to avoid serving his sentence in solitary confinement.
His plea deal required the convening authority overseeing the trial to recommend that Qosi serve his sentence in Camp Four, where detainees live communally under fewer restrictions than in the other camps. But military rules forbid housing convicted criminals with other detainees.
The judge, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Nancy Paul, said an assistant defence secretary ordered two years ago that the Army and the military's Southern Command, which oversees the Guantanamo base, develop a detailed plan for housing prisoners after their conviction.
"This has not been done," the judge said tersely.
She said the absence of any written policy or plan was "especially troubling" because another trial was under way for a young Canadian captive and could produce an additional conviction.
She ruled that Qosi's plea agreement was still valid because it only called for a recommendation that he be housed in the communal camp, and did not guarantee he would be.
The judge directed that Qosi remain in Camp Four for 60 days while the military works out where he would serve the rest of his sentence.
Qosi is the fourth captive convicted in the tribunals created to try non-U.S. terrorism suspects after the al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. Two served short sentences and were sent home to Australia and Yemen.
The only other convict remaining at Guantanamo is Ali Hamza al Bahlul, a Yemeni who was an al Qaeda videographer. He is serving a life sentence for conspiring with al Qaeda and providing material support for terrorism.
"He is separated from the general population," said a Guantanamo spokesman, Navy Commander Brad Fagan. He declined to elaborate except to say, "He's by himself."
In his guilty plea, Qosi acknowledged he knew al Qaeda was a terrorist group when he ran one of the kitchens in bin Laden's Star of Jihad compound in Afghanistan. Qosi, who met bin Laden in Sudan and travelled with him to Afghanistan, also admitted helping the al Qaeda leader escape U.S. forces in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan.
Qosi is 50 and potentially faces a maximum sentence of life in prison but a sealed portion of the plea deal contains a limit thought to be far lower than that.
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