KUALA LUMPUR: A military jury has recommended that the two Malaysians involved in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people be sentenced to five more years at Guantánamo Bay.
However, the men could be freed by 2029 under a secret deal and with sentencing credit.
ABC News reported today that the recommendation follows guilty pleas made earlier this month as part of plea bargains by long standing Guantanamo detainees Mohammed Farik Bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep.
In the twenty years of proceedings by the U.S. military commission at Guantanamo, these convictions are relatively uncommon.
A military spokesman from the Guantanamo military commission, Ronald Flesvig, confirmed the sentencing recommendations, the report added.
The extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah killed 202 Indonesians, foreign tourists and others in two nearly simultaneous bombings at nightspots on the resort island of Bali.
Despite both defendants denying any involvement or prior knowledge of the attacks, they admitted, as part of the plea bargains, to having conspired over the years with the network of militants responsible. The proposed sentence still awaits approval from the senior military authority overseeing Guantanamo.
Farik and Nazir are among 780 detainees under military detention at Guantanamo under George W. Bush's administration's "war on terror" policy following the Sept 11, 2001 (9/11), attacks on the U.S. There have been only a handful of convictions over the years — eight, according to one advocacy group, Reprieve.
Those implicated in major attacks, such as the 9/11 incidents, are still undergoing pretrial hearings. Prosecutors are actively pursuing negotiated settlements to conclude these cases and others.
The legal proceedings have been marred by logistical challenges, frequent changes in judges and other personnel, and legal complexities related to the torture of detainees during their initial years in CIA custody.
As part of their plea bargains, both the Malaysian men agreed to provide testimony against a third Guantanamo detainee, an Indonesian man known as Hambali, in the Bali bombings.
