Majid Khan Meets With Private Attorney At Guantanamo
October 16, 2007

The Department of Defense today will grant access for a civilian defense attorney to meet with Majid Khan, a Pakistani national and one of 15 high value detainees held at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay.

Khan is an alleged Al Qaeda operative with direct connections to the United States, having lived and attended high school in the Baltimore area. Khan also has direct connections to Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM), whom he has referred to as his uncle. KSM allegedly selected Khan as an operative for a possible attack inside the United States and tasked him with researching the poisoning of U.S. water reservoirs and the possibility of blowing up gas stations.

Khan has reportedly had links to Al Qaeda operatives and facilitators, some who assisted him with false travel documents to re-enter the U.S. illegally, and involved him in a discussion of smuggling explosives into the United States using the New York office of a Karachi-based textile business.

Khan exemplifies the significant and genuine threat that the United States and other countries face throughout the world.

Under the Detainee Treatment Act, each detainee at Guantanamo is entitled to have his enemy combatant designation reviewed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. Providing review of such determination in a nation’s own domestic courts is an unprecedented protection for captured enemy fighters in the history of warfare.

There are approximately 330 detainees currently at Guantanamo.