It’s the first Gitmo conviction for the Obama administration and has been kept under seal for ’security reasons’. Just more of that famed Obama administration transparency we keep hearing about, I guess. How nice that it ‘benefits’ both the cook and the Government … I translate that to mean that justice for the 9/11 victims just got screwed. A former cook for Osama bin Laden’s entourage in Afghanistan has reached a secret agreement with the U.S. government that will allow him to serve any sentence at a minimum-security facility at Guantanamo Bay, according to statements by lawyers at a military commission on Monday. Ibrahim al-Qosi, a 50-year-old native of Sudan, who worked for bin Laden for years before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy and material support for terrorism as part of a pre-trial agreement. The case marked the first conviction at Guantanamo Bay under President Obama, whose administration had promised that reformed military commissions would offer greater due process and more transparency. But the government and the defense, with the blessing of Judge Nancy J. Paul, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, have sealed the newly reached agreement, including the maximum sentence that Qosi can serve. A spokesman for the military commission’s prosecutors, Navy Capt. David Iglesias, refused to discuss the agreement or explain why it was kept secret, except to say the plea raises “security issues” and is to the benefit of both Qosi and the government. Two years at Camp 4? Al-Arabyia, a 24-hour Arab news network based in Dubai, cited anonymous sources to report last month that the plea agreement calls for a two-year sentence. In court Monday, Paul ordered the relevant officials at the Defense Department to ensure that Qosi serves any time he gets at Camp 4 — a minimum-security facility at Guantanamo Bay where detainees live in communal quarters — unless the military detention center at Guantanamo is closed. If that happens, and it appears unlikely as the Obama administration’s efforts to close Guantanamo have stalled, Qosi will be moved to a similar prison facility that also offers communal living. Was he more than a cook? Qosi was first charged before a military commission in 2004, when prosecutors alleged that he had managed charitable donations for al-Qaeda and a bin Laden company. But those allegations were dropped when Qosi was recharged in 2007.
Read the original:
US Govt. Cooks Up Secret Deal with Bin Laden’s Chef
