WASHINGTON — A former Baltimore-area resident held at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has reached a plea agreement with military prosecutors that calls for him to testify at the trials of other detainees in exchange for a much-reduced sentence and eventual freedom, according to officials familiar with the case.
The plea agreement with Majid Khan, 31, is the first with a high-value detainee who was previously held by the CIA at a secret prison overseas. Khan was charged this month with war crimes, including murder, attempted murder, spying and providing material support for terrorism, and he faced up to life in prison.
Khan was captured in Pakistan in March 2003, and vanished into the CIA’s network of prisons until President George W. Bush announced in September 2006 that he and 13 other high-profile detainees, including Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, had been transferred to Guantanamo Bay.
Khan’s June 2008 detainee assessment at Guantanamo Bay found him to be a high risk to the United States and its allies, a low detention threat and of “high intelligence value.”
In recent days, Khan, a Pakistani citizen who was a legal U.S. resident, was moved out of the top-security Camp 7 that houses the high-value detainees in anticipation of an arraignment next week at which he will enter a guilty plea, said the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity in advance of the arraignment.
Khan has agreed to be available to testify at military commission trials in the next four years and would then be eligible to be transferred to Pakistan at some point after that, the officials said.
The officials would not specify the amount of time that Khan would serve if he fulfills his obligations under the agreement. Khan’s military attorney declined to comment.
Mohammed allegedly chose Khan, a graduate of Owings Mills High School in suburban Baltimore, because he spoke like an American, a valuable attribute as they planned a series of follow-up operations after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, according to military documents assessing detainees at Guantanamo Bay. These potential attacks included targeting underground gasoline storage tanks, according to the U.S. military.
The military alleged that Khan worked closely with Mohammed and performed at least two test operations to assess his commitment, including a “pseudo-suicide assassination attempt” against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Khan is also alleged to have delivered $50,000 to Jemaah Islamiah, a regional terrorist organization in Southeast Asia, to fund the bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, in August 2003.
