GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba â U.S. military prosecutors announced plans Monday to add another case to the docket of the war crimes tribunal at Guantanamo amid efforts by President Barack Obama to move the proceedings to the United States and shutter the detention center.
Prosecutors have filed charges against Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi for the war crime known as "perfidy," alleging he coordinated a long series of suicide attacks on U.S. and allied troops and civilians in Afghanistan, the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo tribunals, Army Gen. Mark Martins, told reporters at the base.
The charges must be reviewed and approved by a Pentagon legal official before the case can proceed with an arraignment on the charges, which carry a potential life sentence.
Army Lt. Col. Chris Callen, a Pentagon-appointed lawyer for al-Hadi, said he planned to go over the charges with the prisoner Tuesday.
"He'll fill me in on anything pertaining to the charge sheet, tell me if there is anything to it or not, and we'll proceed accordingly," Callen said.
Obama has said he would renew efforts to close the detention center at the U.S. military base in Cuba and move the war crimes tribunals to an unspecified location in the United States. But until that issue is settled, the military is preparing to try al-Hadi at Guantanamo.
"We are proceeding on the prospect of doing it here," Martins said a day before the start of four days of pretrial hearings for Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is charged with orchestrating the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
Perfidy is a long-standing war crime that typically involves some form of treachery, such as pretending to surrender or mixing in with civilians to carry out an attack.
