WASHINGTON - The U.S. defense department has dropped charges against a Guantanamo detainee who was accused of masterminding the deadly attack on the USS Cole at a Yemeni port in 2000, the Pentagon said on Thursday.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell confirmed the withdrawal of charges against Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a 43-year-old Saudi Arabian national, over the attack, which killed 17 U.S. sailors at the port of Aden.
The Pentagon is likely to officially announce the decision on Friday after President Barack Obama's scheduled meeting with the bereaved families of the Sept. 11 attacks and the USS Cole bombing, the American Broadcasting Company reported.
The decision made by Judge Susan Crawford, a Pentagon official overseeing the U.S. war crimes court at Guantanamo, was in accordance with Obama's executive orders demanding a 120-day suspension of trials of terrorist suspects to allow all cases to be reviewed, as part of the procedure to close the controversial prison within a year.
"This department will be in full compliance with the president's executive order. There's no ifs, ands or buts about that," Morrell said.
"While that executive order is in force and effect, trust me that there will be no proceedings continuing down at Gitmo (Guantanamo) with military commissions," Morrell added.
The spokesman's reiteration removed confusion over remarks made last week by Army Colonel James Pohl, chief judge at the Guantanamo war crimes court, who declared rejection to Obama's order for the sake of "public interest" and vowed to continue with Nashiri's trial which was set for Feb. 9.
Nashiri has been detained by the U.S. authorities for more than six years. Former CIA director Michael Hayden admitted that Nashiri had been tortured in prison by CIA interrogators.
Source: Xinhua