Report: US reaches plea deal with Guantanamo prisoner

Feb 22, 2012, 23:48 GMT

Washington - A Guantanamo detainee has reached a plea deal with the US government that would see him testify against other terrorism suspects in exchange for a reduced sentence, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.

Majid Khan, 31, is charged with war crimes including murder, attempted murder, spying and providing material support for terrorism, and faced a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.

The deal would be the first with a high-value detainee who had spent time in the network of secret CIA prisons, the Post reported online.

Khan was due to be arraigned by a military commission on February 29 at Guantanamo on charges related to allegedly planning attacks with the terrorist network al-Qaeda, including involvement in a 2003 hotel bombing in Indonesia and a possible plot to assassinate Pakistan's then-president Pervez Musharraf.

The deal would see him testify in hearings and trials over the next four years and would allow him to eventually be returned to Pakistan, the newspaper quoted unnamed government officials as saying.

Khan was a former US legal resident in Baltimore, Maryland, and was allegedly of high value within al-Qaeda because of his ability to blend into US society. He allegedly worked closely with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.