GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — U.S. diplomats have requested 11 international locations if they’d be keen to absorb a former courier for Al Qaeda who used to be tortured by means of the C.I.A. and become a central authority informant, Justice Department attorneys mentioned in a court docket submitting on Tuesday.
The attorneys mentioned that discovering a country to resettle the prisoner, Majid Khan, 42, together with his spouse and daughter used to be a concern for the Biden management at a time when prosecutors are discussing imaginable plea agreements with different prisoners at Guantánamo Bay.
Mr. Khan, a U.S.-educated Pakistani citizen, received consideration remaining yr as the primary former prisoner of the C.I.A.’s black web site jail community to publicly describe his torture, between 2003 and 2006, by means of U.S. brokers. A U.S. army jury condemned his remedy as “a stain on the moral fiber of America.”
Justice Department attorneys described the Biden management’s efforts to discover a position for him in a submitting that suggested Judge Reggie B. Walton of the U.S. District Court in Washington to really take no motion for now on Mr. Khan’s petition of habeas corpus.
“The government is actively — and urgently — working to facilitate petitioner’s transfer,” the attorneys wrote in a 37-page submitting that didn’t shed light on how lots of the 11 international locations have been nonetheless taking into consideration the request.
Mr. Khan pleaded in charge to terrorism-related offenses in 2012. His attorneys have described him as remoted in the similar detention environment wherein he served his sentence, which ended on March 1.
In a submitting on July 25, they requested the pass judgement on to reserve his unlock into the United States or at the U.S. Navy base past the jail zone, which purposes like a small American the city of 6,000 citizens.
In the other, they mentioned, he must be transferred to the custody of the Department of Homeland Security, which has a small facility at the base that properties Cubans and different Caribbean electorate whose circumstances are being reviewed for imaginable third-country asylum.
Mr. Khan has members of the family in suburban Baltimore, the place he attended highschool within the Nineteen Nineties. But U.S. legislation forbids the discharge of Guantánamo detainees into the United States.
Justice Department attorneys additionally brushed aside the recommendation of liberating him at the base.
But his attorneys say he can’t return to Pakistan, the place his spouse and daughter are living, as a result of he fears persecution there as a former Qaeda member who introduced testimony towards different Guantánamo prisoners.
Col. Matthew Jemmott of the Army, the warden of the Pentagon jail, disputed Mr. Khan’s description of his detention as necessarily solitary confinement.
Mr. Khan socializes with F.B.I. brokers, jail guards, army attorneys and most sensible jail officers all the way through “religious feasts, social meetings and meetings regarding detention-related issues,” Colonel Jemmott mentioned in a testimony.
He additionally mentioned that Mr. Khan used to be entitled to quarterly calls with circle of relatives via a jail program referred to as the Detainee Interactive Call Experience, however that he had declined his remaining two provides. DICE, because the colonel referred to as it, has been described in court docket as stop-and-go, intelligence-monitored conversations. A safety officer listens to what the prisoner desires to mention at the name and makes a decision at the spot whether or not to unlock the audio to the circle of relatives member. The relative’s reaction could also be on a censored extend.
Justice Department attorneys mentioned of their submitting that discovering a country to soundly resettle Mr. Khan “is in the government’s national security interests to encourage cooperation by individuals accused of acts of terrorism or other offenses triable by military commissions.”
Of the 36 prisoners at Guantánamo, two — together with Mr. Khan — were convicted and 10 others are in pretrial complaints.
Prosecutors are in plea negotiations with the 5 males accused of plotting the Sept. 11 assaults. It isn’t identified if any of the defendants are searching for sentences that might result in resettlement in 0.33 international locations or imprisonment in a foreign country.
But a disabled Iraqi prisoner just lately introduced a in charge plea in alternate for switch inside of two years to a country that can give him scientific remedy.
Justice Department attorneys mentioned Mr. Khan’s detention used to be lawful as a result of “hostilities with Al Qaeda remain ongoing.” They cited the drone strike by means of the C.I.A. remaining month that killed the motion’s chief, Ayman al-Zawahri, in Kabul, Afghanistan, as evidence that the warfare had now not ended.
