The Pentagon has said it is charging a Saudi Arabian detainee with “organizing and directing” the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and will seek the death penalty.
Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann, legal adviser to the US military tribunal system, said on Monday that charges were being sworn against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi of Yemeni descent, who has been held at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2006.
The charges still must be approved by a US Department of Defense official, who oversees military tribunals set up for terrorism suspects. If they are approved, al-Nashiri would be the first person charged in the US in connection with the attack nearly eight years ago.
Hartmann said the allegations include conspiracy to violate laws of war, murder, treachery, terrorism, destruction of property and intentionally causing serious bodily injury.
Seventeen US sailors were killed and dozens wounded when the Navy destroyer was attacked in the Yemeni port of Aden as it refueled.
Al-Nashiri is also accused of a role in the Oct. 6, 2002, suicide attack on the Limburg, a French oil tanker, Hartmann said. The attack killed a Bulgarian crew member and spilled 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden.
Al-Nashiri told a hearing at Guantanamo Bay last year that he confessed to helping plot the Cole bombing only because he was tortured by US interrogators.
CIA Director Michael Hayden said early this year that al-Nashiri was among terrorist suspects subjected to waterboarding in 2002 and 2003, while being interrogated in secret CIA prisons.
Asked at a Pentagon news conference if evidence obtained from the waterboarding is tainted, Hartmann said that would be considered at any trial.
“We will look at the evidence, all of the evidence that is associated with the case,” Hartmann said.
“While there has been an admission that there was waterboarding, there may well be other evidence in the case. That’s not ... necessarily the only part of evidence in the case,” he said.
According to US intelligence, al-Nashiri was tasked by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to attack the Cole and was also al-Qaeda’s operations chief in the Arabian Peninsula until he was caught in 2002.
Hartmann read a charge sheet, alleging the following against al-Nashiri:
• He is a member of al-Qaeda and met with bin Laden on several occasions.
• He rented apartments overlooking the port of Aden in 1999 to prepare for the Cole attack.
• His co-conspirators failed in an attempt to blow up the USS The Sullivans in January of 2000. Al-Nashiri and others salvaged the explosives and refitted the boat from that plot, then he went to Afghanistan to discuss reorganization of the plot with bin Laden.
‘SHARP COMPETITION’: Australia is to partner with US-based Lockheed Martin to make guided multiple launch rocket systems, an Australian defense official said Australia is to ramp up missile manufacturing under a plan unveiled yesterday by a top defense official, who said bolstering weapons stockpiles would help keep would-be foes at bay. Australian Minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy said the nation would establish a homegrown industry to produce long-range guided missiles and other much-needed munitions. “Why do we need more missiles? Strategic competition between the United States and China is a primary feature of Australia’s security environment,” Conroy said in a speech. “That competition is at its sharpest in our region, the Indo-Pacific.” Australia is to partner with US-based weapons giant Lockheed Martin to make
BEYOND WASHINGTON: Although historically the US has been the partner of choice for military exercises, Jakarta has been trying to diversify its partners, an analyst said Indonesia’s first joint military drills with Russia this week signal that new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto would seek a bigger role for Jakarta on the world stage as part of a significant foreign policy shift, analysts said. Indonesia has long maintained a neutral foreign policy and refuses to take sides in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or US-China rivalry, but Prabowo has called for stronger ties with Moscow despite Western pressure on Jakarta. “It is part of a broader agenda to elevate ties with whomever it may be, regardless of their geopolitical bloc, as long as there is a benefit for Indonesia,” said Pieter
TIGHT CAMPAIGN: Although Harris got a boost from an Iowa poll, neither candidate had a margin greater than three points in any of the US’ seven battleground states US Vice President Kamala Harris made a surprise appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) in the final days before the election, as she and former US president and Republican presidential nominees make a frantic last push to win over voters in a historically close campaign. The first lines Harris spoke as she sat across from Maya Rudolph, their outfits identical, was drowned out by cheers from the audience. “It is nice to see you Kamala,” Harris told Rudolph with a broad grin she kept throughout the sketch. “And I’m just here to remind you, you got this.” In sync, the two said supporters
Pets are not forgotten during Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations, when even Fido and Tiger get a place at the altars Mexican families set up to honor their deceased loved ones, complete with flowers, candles and photographs. Although the human dead usually get their favorite food or drink placed on altars, the nature of pet food can make things a little different. The holiday has roots in Mexican pre-Hispanic customs, as does the reverence for animals. The small, hairless dogs that Mexicans kept before the Spanish conquest were believed to help guide their owners to the afterlife, and were sometimes given
RSS