First Guantanamo Detainee Arrives in U.S.

Agence France Presse. Posted June 9, 2009.

WASHINGTON (AFP) -- The first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be transferred to U.S. soil arrived in New York early Tuesday to face terrorism charges, the U.S. Justice Department said.

"Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian national who had been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility since September 2006, arrived early this morning … to face criminal charges stemming from his alleged role in the August 7, 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya," the Justice Department said in a statement.

Ghailani, an alleged Al-Qaeda operative, arrived at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and was expected to make his first appearance in a Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, according to Attorney General Eric Holder.

"With his appearance in federal court today, Ahmed Ghailani is being held accountable for his alleged role in the bombing of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and the murder of 224 people," Holder said in a statement.

"The Justice Department has a long history of securely detaining and successfully prosecuting terror suspects through the criminal justice system, and we will bring that experience to bear in seeking justice in this case."

Ghailani faces 286 counts of murder, conspiracy to murder, bomb and maim, and conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against U.S. nationals, charges for which he could receive the death penalty.

According to the indictment from March 2001, Ghailani also conspired with Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and other Qaeda members to kill Americans.

Expectations had grown in recent weeks that Ghailani would be the first Guantanamo inmate to be brought to U.S. shores and tried in a civilian court.

President Barack Obama has vowed to close by January 2010 the Guantanamo detention center that still houses about 240 "war on terror" inmates, most of whom have been detained since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

The U.S. leader hopes other countries will take in some of the 50 detainees so far cleared for release. An Algerian national has been taken in by France, while an Ethiopian-born British resident was returned to Britain, but finding homes for the others has proven to be difficult.

Many leaders of countries who called for the facility to be shut down have refused to harbor its former inmates, and the U.S. Congress has opposed moves to let them stay in the United States.

Obama is under intense pressure to decide the fate of the detainees from 30 nations at the camp, many of whom have not been charged.

Some may be impossible to try, as their evidence may be inadmissible in court due to interrogation methods branded by critics as torture, but may also be deemed too dangerous to release.

Last week Canada turned down Washington's requests to take in Guantanamo detainees, becoming the third U.S. ally to put a snag in efforts to shutter the infamous prison.

Ottawa last month turned down a U.S. request to take in three of 17 Chinese Muslim detainees cleared for release from the U.S. naval base in southern Cuba because of "significant security concerns," Canadian immigration ministry spokesman Alykhan Velshi told AFP.

Germany and Australia also have been urged to take in Guantanamo inmates, but both have appeared reticent.

See more stories tagged with: death penalty, osama bin laden, guantanamo, kenya, department of justice, al-qaeda, ahmed khalfan ghailani, eric holder, tanzania, u.s. embassy bombings

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