IRAQI HELD AT GUANTANAMO BAY PLEADS GUILTY TO WAR CRIMES
Admits to role in attacks against U.S., allied forces, civilians
An Iraqi man who has been held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center for more than 15 years pleaded guilty Monday to war crimes charges for his role in al-Qaeda attacks against U.S. and allied forces along with civilians in Afghanistan.
The pleas by the prisoner known as Abd al-Hadi alIraqi before a military commission at the U.S. base in Cuba amount to a legal milestone, aiding efforts to resolve the long-stalled Guantanamo tribunals and wind down operations at the detention center.
Prosecuting Hadi al-Iraqi has been delayed for years by some of the same legal and logistical challenges that have held up other Guantanamo cases as well as by a deteriorating spinal condition that has left him partially paralyzed.
Hadi al-Iraqi, who is about 60 and says his real name is Nashwan al-Tamir, was arraigned at Guantanamo in 2014 before the commission, which was set up to prosecute prisoners for war crimes in a high-security court that combines military and civilian law.
He pleaded guilty to four of five charges against him, including conspiracy and several violations of the international laws of war as an alQaeda commander early in the conflict in Afghanistan that formally ended with the U.S. withdrawal in August.
He was facing up to life in prison but is expected to be eventually transferred out of Guantanamo and sent to a third country under the terms of his plea deal after he undergoes additional medical treatment at the base.
The U.S. said Hadi alIraqi was a senior figure in alQaeda since the mid-1990s, leading a training camp for operatives in Afghanistan in the years before the organization carried out the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
According to military charge sheets, the prisoner also assisted the Taliban with the March 2001 destruction of the the giant, sixth-century sandstone Buddha statues built into a cliff in Bamiyan province.
After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in response to the attacks, Hadi al-Iraqi organized deadly al-Qaeda attacks against American and allied forces along with civilians in the country and in neighboring Pakistan.