Pakistan

Gitmo tribunal to begin Pakistani detainee’s trial on Wednesday

Majid Shaukat Khan, accused of plotting to kill Musharraf, will appear before a military commission.

Huma Imtiaz February 28, 2012

GUANTANAMO BAY: On Wednesday morning, Pakistani citizen and Guantanamo detainee Majid Shaukat Khan will hear charges filed against him by the US Department of Defence at a military commission on the island that houses 171 detainees.

This will be Majid Khan’s first appearance in public, and in front of a military commission since he was arrested in Karachi in 2003.

The charges against Majid Shaukat Khan, who turned 32 a day before his appearance at the military commission, range from plotting to assassinate former Pakistani President General (retd) Pervez Musharraf in 2002. His charge sheet cites, “Between about January 4, 2002, and about March 21, 2002, in or near Karachi, Pakistan, Khan told [September 11, 2001, attack mastermind] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that he was willing to conduct a suicide attack against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. At Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s direction, Khan recorded a ‘martyr video’, wore an explosive vest and sat in a mosque waiting for President Musharraf to arrive.”

He is also accused of helping finance the Marriott Hotel bomb blast in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2003. He has also been accused of plotting attacks in the US with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed post-9/11, which involved bombing gas stations in the US.

Arrested in Karachi in 2003, according to various news reports, his whereabouts were unknown until it came to light that he was present in Guantanamo Bay in 2006. Unconfirmed reports suggest he was at a secret Central Intelligence Agency prison before he was sent to the detention facility at Guantanamo.

According to his Guantanamo file released by Wikileaks, Majid Khan was a resident of Baltimore, Maryland, since 1996, when he and his family moved there. Following the Tablighi Jamaat since 1999, he met Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in 2002.

The charges filed against Khan by the US Department of Defence also detail his involvement with three other characters – the infamous neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, Saifullah Paracha, who is a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, and Uzair Paracha, Saifullah’s son.In 2002, Siddiqui and in 2003, Uzair Paracha conspired with Khan to commit immigration fraud.