20091204

Mr Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the Tanzanian national standing trial for terror charges in the US, wants all charges against him dismissed because his constitutional rights were violated.

He is the first detainee to be transferred from the notorious Guantanamo detention facility to the US mainland for a civilian trial.

Mr Ghailani, who is accused of helping plot the 1998 attacks on US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed hundreds of people, argues that he has not been given his constitutional rights to a fair and speedy trial.

He also claims to have suffered "abhorrent" physical and psychological abuse at the hands of interrogators, his lawyers said in a court filing.

The trial of Mr Ghailani, 34, is being closely watched because it is the first involving a suspect transferred from the controversial facility at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

It also comes in the wake of the Obama administration's plans to also transfer five men accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 attacks on US soil from Guantanamo for trial in New York City.

Mr Ghailani who hails from Zanzibar and the five 9/11 co-accused, who include self-confessed mastermind of the attacks Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, were all held in secret CIA detention facilities overseas and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques.

The US government is not seeking the death penalty for Mr Ghailani, although it will do so for the 9/11 accused. The family of the Tanzanian suspect has publicly expressed its wish to have their kin repatriated and charged in local courts.

In a legal filing dated November 16, obtained after it was reviewed for classified information, Mr Ghailani's lawyers noted that the original indictment against their client dates from 1998.

"Our government made the conscious and deliberate decision to sequester him in solitary confinement in secret prisons for over two years, subjecting him to what are euphemistically referred to as 'ehanced interrogation techniques,' even though he had a pending indictment," the filing said.

His lawyers add that the US government sought to turn Mr Ghailani "into an intelligence asset which our government could rely upon in the defense of our nation."

The government's decision to risk violating Mr Ghailani's right to speedy trial in order to gain intelligence from him must have 'consequences,' the lawyers added.

"Those consequences must be severe when the means and methods used by the government to reach their goal included the systematic physical and psychological abuse of the defendant, abuse so abhorrent that the government must rely upon a claim of national security as a justification for the interrogation techniques that were employed," the lawsuit said.

Judge Lewis Kaplan has sole discretion to rule on the case and his decision can be appealed before the US Supreme Court.

Mr Ghailani, who faces 308 charges, is accused of helping plot attacks on the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which killed 224 people and injured more than 5,000.

President Obama's administration announced its plan to try the five Guantanamo detainees accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks in New York as it works to close the controversial facility.

President Obama has acknowledged his administration will likely miss a self-imposed January 2010 deadline to close the prison.

allafrica