Detainee Says He Didn't Know About Bombing Plot

An alleged al-Qaeda document forger indicted in connection with the 1998 attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania told a U.S. military tribunal that he did not realize he was part of a bombing plot when he bought explosives and that he was sorry for what happened, according to a hearing transcript released by the Pentagon yesterday.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani told military officers at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last week that he purchased TNT for a friend, initially believing it was "soap for washing horses." When he later learned that he had instead obtained explosives, Ghailani said, his friend told him that they were for mining diamonds in Somalia.

Ghailani testified that he had no idea the explosives would be part of a huge bomb to be used against the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Aug. 7, 1998, killing 11 people.

"It was without my knowledge what they were doing, but I helped them," Ghailani said, according to a 19-page transcript. "So I apologize to the United States government for what I did. And I'm sorry for what happened to those families who lost, who lost their friends and their beloved ones."

Ghailani's account came at a March 17 hearing held to determine whether he should be designated an "enemy combatant" and remain in U.S. custody. It is impossible to independently verify the transcript of Ghailani's hearing, which was closed to the public.

Ghailani, a Tanzanian, said he fell in with al-Qaeda operatives after the bombing and trained in the late 1990s at the terrorist group's camps in Afghanistan. He is one of 14 "high-value detainees" who had been in CIA custody until late last year, when President Bush ordered them transferred to Guantanamo Bay for possible military trials.

Ghailani was arrested after a gun battle in Pakistan in July 2004. He had been indicted in New York in 1998 over his alleged role in the embassy bombings and was on the U.S. most-wanted-terrorist list at the time.

U.S. military officials allege that Ghailani purchased the TNT and a vehicle used in the Tanzania bombing, scouted the site with others, and used a cellphone to speak with the bombing team in Kenya. Ghailani, who spoke in English according to the transcript, said he was unaware of either plot.

At the hearing, Ghailani said he trained at al-Qaeda camps in 1998 to gain military experience and took a job preparing passports for the terrorist group. He said he met Osama bin Laden and Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, in Afghanistan and fled to Pakistan after the strikes on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Ghailani, in effect, challenged all of the allegations against him and asserted that he was incorrectly identified by another detainee because of a similar first name.

"But I think it isn't me," he said. "He mean another Ahmed. Not me."

Ghailani asked to call one witness, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, to testify that Ghailani had been wrongly sought by the U.S. government. The head of the military tribunal approved calling the witness but said he was unavailable because of his incarceration in the United States, according to the transcript.

"When he was approached, through his representatives, he declined to provide any statements for you in these proceedings," the tribunal president, a Navy captain, said. "He did not wish to participate. However, [he indicated] that at some future proceeding, if there is another proceeding in your case, that he may decide to cooperate at that point."

The tribunals cannot compel a witness to appear or to write a statement. David Ruhnke, an attorney for Mohamed, confirmed yesterday the government's account of its efforts to contact his client, but he declined to elaborate.

Mohamed was convicted in May 2001 of 11 counts of murder in the embassy bombings. Mohamed is held at the "supermax" prison in Florence, Colo., where he is serving a life sentence.

Also released yesterday was the transcript of a hearing for Mohamed Farik bin Amin Zubair, who allegedly helped finance the bombing of a Marriott hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, in August 2003. Zubair, who is Malaysian, questioned his detainment through a translator.

So far, nine of the 14 detainees who had been in CIA custody have been through similar hearings. Six transcripts have been released.