Detainee to be tried in U.S.

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration is preparing to transfer a military detainee in Afghanistan for criminal trial in Virginia, U.S. officials said Thursday.

The move would mark the first time a military detainee from Afghanistan was brought to the U.S. for trial, and it represents the Obama administration’s latest attempt to show that it can use the criminal court system to deal with terror suspects.

The prisoner, known by the nom de guerre Irek Hamidullan, is a Russian veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan who defected to the Taliban and stayed in the country, U.S. officials said. He was captured in 2009 after an attack on Afghan border police and U.S. soldiers in Khost province, officials said.

He has been held at the U.S. Parwan detention facility at Bagram airfield ever since. He faces up to life in prison on several charges relating to the 2009 attack, and is expected to be tried in one of the federal courthouses in the Eastern District of Virginia. Prosecutors in that office have experience with high-profile terror prosecutions, including that of Sept. 11, 2001, conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, who is serving life without parole.

The congressional and administration officials who discussed the matter would do so only on condition of anonymity because it remained classified. Congress was notified Friday that a prisoner was going to be transferred for trial, but lawmakers were given few details, several congressional aides said.

In a statement late Thursday, National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said, “We can confirm that a detainee at the Parwan detention facility in Afghanistan will be transferred to law enforcement custody and will be brought to the United States for trial.”