Pentagon calls for hearing before sentencing Iraqi al-Qaeda terrorist
The pre-sentencing hearing has been set on Aug 7-18, 2023.
WASHINGTON: A pre-sentencing hearing for an al-Qaeda-linked Iraqi commander of Afghan insurgency who pleaded guilty to war crime charges before a US military court in Cuba has been set on Aug 7-18, 2023.
The US Department of Defence (DoD), in a statement, has invited media to cover a pre-sentencing hearing in the case against Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi scheduled on those dates.
The proceedings will take place at the Expeditionary Legal Complex located in Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and will be transmitted to select closed circuit television sites at Fort Meade, Maryland, USA, said the DoD.
Al-Iraqi entered a guilty plea in June of 2022 to war crimes charges related to lethal attacks in Afghanistan on allied soldiers in 2003 and 2004 in a deal that could hand him off to the custody of another country by 2024, according to a news report in that year.
During that hearing, al-Iraqi admitted to his activities in Afghanistan as a co-conspirator with Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders between 1996 and 2003. The account included more than 100 items.
He could be sentenced to 10 years in prison, much of it to be served in the custody of another country, the report further stated.
He pleaded guilty to the traditional war crimes of attacking protected property — a US military medevac helicopter that insurgents who answered to him failed to shoot down in Afghanistan in 2003 — and of treachery and conspiracy connected to insurgent bombings that killed at least three allied troops, one each from Canada, Britain and Germany.
Al-Iraqi was reportedly caught in 2006 before being transferred to the US military detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba that same year.