WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon charged a Guantanamo detainee with capital murder and terrorism Monday for his alleged role in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania and his suspected ties to Al Qaeda.The Defense Department's chief military commissions prosecutor filed nine charges against Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, and is seeking the death penalty if the Tanzanian is convicted of playing a central role in planning and preparing the truck bombing that killed 11 people and injured dozens.
A nearly simultaneous bombing of the U.S. Embassy in neighboring Kenya, also blamed on Al Qaeda, killed 213 including 12 Americans on Aug. 7, 1998.The Pentagon's action was sharply criticized by civil rights advocates and some federal law enforcement officials who wondered why the government was pursuing a war crimes tribunal considering that Ghailani was indicted in the bombings along with 10 others nearly a decade ago by a federal grand jury in New York City.
Four of them were tried and convicted in 2001 and sentenced to life without parole. The others had not been captured at the time.
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