Majid S. Khan | |
---|---|
Born | Majid Shoukat Khan 28 February 1980 Pakistan |
Arrested | 5 March 2003 Karachi, Pakistan |
Citizenship | Pakistan |
Detained at | Pakistan, CIA black sites, Guantanamo |
ISN | 10020 |
Charge(s) | Five war crimes, including murder, attempted murder and spying |
Status | Pleaded guilty under plea deal |
Majid Shoukat Khan (born 28 February 1980) is the only known legal resident of the United States who is held in the Guantanamo Bay detainment camps. He was detained after returning to his native Pakistan to visit his wife and was captured by Pakistani authorities, who handed him over to the CIA.
Iyman Faris told authorities that Khan had referred to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as an "uncle" and spoken of a desire to kill then president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf. After Khan was taken into custody, sent to a CIA black site in Afghanistan, where he was interrogated and transferred to Guantanamo Bay in September 2006, Faris said that his accusations had been "an absolute lie." He said that he had been coerced into making the statements.
Khan gained asylum in the United States in 1998 and was a legal resident of Baltimore, Maryland, where he had attended high school and worked for his father. Khan has made repeated offers to submit to a polygraph test to prove his innocence, but been denied. The Director of National Intelligence has asserted that Khan's experience working in his father's gas station "...made Khan highly qualified to assist Mohammad with the research and planning to blow up gas stations."
Khan is represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights and is one of few so-called "high value detainees" to have legal representation. While in Guantanamo, he has twice attempted suicide. He has complained in writing of having his beard forcibly shaved (in violation of his religious practice) and spending weeks without sunlight; he also has complained that detainees are expected to wash with "cheap branded, unscented soap", and that he is forced to read the "poor quality" Joint Task Force Guantanamo's weekly newsletter The Wire.