Pakistan keeps its distance on Guantanamo

Pakistan yesterday distanced itself from the trial of a Pakistani who admitted he was an Al Qaeda money courier and a would-be suicide bomber, suggesting it was for the US court to decide his fate. After nearly nine years in US custody, Majid Khan, 32, appeared in public for the first time in a courtroom on the Guantanamo Bay US naval base in Cuba on Wednesday and admitted his crimes. "There is nothing for us to comment on, as it has been through a legal process," Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told a news conference in Islamabad. Pakistani Islamists denounced Khan's trial as "unfair" and "cruel" and said he was not given proper opportunities to defend himself. "This confession was the result of cruelty being done in the name of war on terror," said Liaquat Baluch, deputy head of Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's largest Islamist party. But there was no evidence of that in the courtroom on Wednesday. Wearing a dark business suit and sporting a short haircut and a closely trimmed goatee, Khan, a former resident of the Baltimore suburbs, pleaded guilty to five war crimes, including murder, attempted murder and spying. Sentencing has been delayed for four years, and, if Khan fails to cooperate, he could receive up to 25 years. The deal calls for him to provide "complete and accurate information in interviews, depositions and testimony wherever and whenever requested by the prosecutors." Before September 11, 2001, Khan worked for Electronic Data Systems in Northern Virginia, and on the day of the attacks watched smoke rise from the Pentagon from his office building, according to court documents. In the documents, Khan, a Pakistani citizen, acknowledges that he flew to Pakistan after September 11 and volunteered to work for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the attacks. Over the course of a year, before his capture in March 2003, Khan couriered US$50,000 (Dh183,665) to Al Qaeda associates to fund a hotel bombing in Jakarta, discussed terrorist strikes in the United States — including poisoning water reservoirs — and agreed to a suicide attack to assassinate the then president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, court documents state. During most of the hearing, Khan appeared quite relaxed. At one point, he smiled at two FBI agents on the prosecution side, and pumped his fist. The agents smiled back. When the judge said he could continue to be held under the laws of war even after he has served his sentence, Khan said, "I'm making a leap of faith here, sir, that's all I can do." Lt Col Jon Jackson, Khan's military counsel, said that his client had pushed for a deal for a long time and wanted a "second chance in life." "He's remorseful; he wished he had never been involved with Al Qaeda," Col Jackson said. Referring to Khan's cooperation, Col Jackson said his client's plan over the "next four years is to join Team America." Pakistani police arrested Khan in Karachi in 2003 and turned him over to the CIA. His family did not learn what had happened to him until US President George W Bush announced in 2006 that he had closed secret prisons and sent Khan and more than a dozen other CIA "ghost prisoners" to Guantanamo. Amina Masud Janjua, who is leading a campaign for the release of hundreds of suspects detained by security agencies since Pakistan joined the US-led war on terror in 2001, said Khan was picked up along with 18 members of his extended family by the Pakistani security agencies. "Seventeen members of the family were released after three days and his brother was released after three months," she said. But the family had no idea about the fate of Majid Khan until 2006.