First civilian criminal trial planned for Guantanamo detainee Ghailani

Officials on Thursday announced the plan to bring Ghailani to New York for trial, which would make him the first Guantanamo detainee to be brought to the United States, and the first to be brought to trial in a civilian criminal court. Ghailani was also charged at the military commissions.

Thursday’s Justice Department statement said the federal criminal case against Ghailani alleges he helped bombers buy a Nissan truck and oxygen and acetylene tanks that were used in the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania in 1998.

He also allegedly helped load boxes of explosives, cylinder tanks, batteries, detonators, fertilizer and sand bags into the back of the truck in the weeks immediately before the bombing. He left Africa just before the bombings, and later rose up through the al-Qaida ranks, according to investigators.

He was categorized as a high-value detainee by U.S. authorities after he was captured in Pakistan in 2004 and transferred to the detention center at the U.S. naval base in Cuba two years later.

President Barack Obama spoke of the Ghailani decision Thursday in a speech designed to win support for his national security program, which include closing Guantanamo’s detention center.

“Preventing this detainee from coming to our shores would prevent his trial and conviction. And after over a decade, it is time to finally see that justice is served, and that is what we intend to do,” Obama said.

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