UPDATE - Gitmo Detainee Sentenced To 26 Years, Details CIA Torture - Reports

WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 30th October, 2021) A US military jury has sentenced Majid Khan, a former resident of the state of Maryland who is held at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, to 26 years in prison for joining the al-Qaeda terror group (banned in Russia), ABC news reported.

Seven of the eight jurors recommended clemency to the defendant in a letter to the Defense Department that accompanied the sentence, the report said on Friday.

The defendant is a 41-year-old Pakistani national who moved to the United States in the 1990s and graduated from a high school near Baltimore, Maryland. Khan pleaded guilty to a range of charges, including his involvement in al-Qaeda plots to bomb the J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, in 2003 and in attacks in the United States after September 11, 2001, the report said.

However, under a plea agreement Khan can be released as soon as February because he cooperated with US authorities, the report said.

If Khan is released after the trial, he would be resettled in a third country which is yet to be determined and it cannot be Pakistan, the report said.

"Since the commission of these crimes, Majid is a different person," Army Maj. Michael Lyness, a defense attorney said as quoted by the report. "Majid Khan is reformed and deserving of your mercy."

Nevertheless, the prosecution continues to recommend an imprisonment sentence at the higher end of a 25-40 year range, according to the report.

According to The New York Times, Khan gave to the jury a detailed account of brutal forced feedings, waterboarding, and other abuse he suffered in the CIA's overseas prison network.

The Times said it is the first time in public a detainee described torture at CIA black sites.