The United States has brought criminal charges against a 10th Guantanamo Bay prisoner, charging an Afghan man with conspiracy, aiding the enemy and attacking civilians, the Pentagon said on Friday. The case against Abdul Zahir means that 2 per cent of the roughly 500 foreign terrorism suspects held at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been charged with a crime.On Friday, prosecutors accused Zahir of working as a translator and money man for the former Taliban rulers of Afghanistan and the al-Qaida network, and implicated him in a 2002 grenade attack that injured three journalists. He was captured in July 2002. His case was referred for trial to a tribunal of US military officers, formally called a commission. No trial date was set.
These commission proceedings are the first such war crimes trials conducted by the US since the second world war. The US charged five other detainees in November and four in 2004. Not one of their trials has been completed. The Supreme Court is expected in March to hear a challenge to George Bush's power to create military commissions to put Guantanamo prisoners on trial for war crimes. The Pentagon has promised "full and fair" trials and has not sought the death penalty against any of the defendants, including Zahir.