Two Malaysians in Guantanamo plead guilty

Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep and Mohammed Farik Bin Amin have pleaded guilty to conspiring in the Bali Bombing that killed more than 200 people.

The two men appeared in front of a military court at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay on Tuesday in proceedings broadcast via video link to reporters in the United States.

Bin Lep, 47, and Bin Amin, 48, pleaded guilty to five of the nine charges against them, according to Benar News, marking the first time they had entered a plea since they were brought to Guantanamo some 17 years ago.

Charges related to the 2003 attack on the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 11 people were dropped as part of a plea deal, according to The New York Times, and the men agreed to give evidence against alleged Indonesian mastermind Encep Nurjaman, also known as Hambali.

Bin Lep and Bin Amin were accused of being Hambali’s accomplices and charged alongside him, but their cases were separated last year.

The Malaysians will be sentenced next week, after which they are expected to be returned home.

Hambali, who was once described by former US President George W Bush as “one of the world’s most lethal terrorists”, is still to go on a trail.

Through his lawyers, Hambali has alleged that he was brutally tortured following his arrest in Thailand in 2003, after which he says he was transferred to a secret detention camp run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and tortured as part of the agency’s rendition, detention and interrogation (RDI) programme, which is sometimes referred to as the “torture programme”.

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