Washington - A Tanzanian detainee at the US military prison in Guantanamo has been charged in connection with the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Dar Es Salaam that took 11 lives, the US military said Monday.

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, suspected of purchasing explosives, moving around bomb components and scouting the embassy with the suicide bomb driver, could face the death sentence if the military justice system accepts the charges as a capital offense, according to a Department of Defence website.

Critics of the military commission process charged that in this case, the US was trying to circumvent the US criminal court system, perhaps in order to keep under wraps testimony about treatment of prisoners in the secret CIA prisons where Ghailani was kept for two years.

The charges are unusual because they apply to an incident that happened before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In fact, Gailani was indicted in a criminal court in New York in 2001 for the 1998 bombings, and four of his co-defendants were found guilty.

The Tanzania bombing was accompanied by a twin simultaneous attack on the US embassy in Nairobi, where 212 people were killed and thousands were injured. The twin attacks bore the hallmarks of al- Qaeda's methods, echoed in the 2001 terrorist attacks when four planes were hijacked and crashed.

Ghailani was seized in Gujarat, Pakistan, in July 2004 and his Uzbek wife was also detained with him, according to Human Rights Watch.

He was then held in secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before being brought to Guantanamo with a number of other such prisoners in September 2006, the organization's senior counterterrorism counsel, Jennifer Daskal, said.

The CIA has admitted to using torture-like methods such as water boarding in questioning some prisoners.

'It seems in this case there's absolutely no reason why the US wouldn't try him in the federal court system, which is established and respected and has credibility that the military commissions never will have,' Daskal told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

In the military commission process, the US can better limit information about its detention programme and how people were treated, Daskal said.

She said the charges represented an 'attempt to do an end run around the established rules of the criminal justice system.'

Ghailani is the fifteenth detainee against whom charges have been sworn under the Military Commissions Act. Last month, the US military said it was seeking the death penalty in six other cases, all of them directly suspected of planning the 9-11 attacks.

The charges against Ghailani must be reviewed and approved by a military official, Susan Crawford, a former military appeals court judge. She can then decide whether the death penalty is warranted under the charges.

The death penalty cases are likely to intensify criticism of the military commissions.

Some analysts believe the process could take years because the charges carry the death penalty, which could be challenged in some civilian courts. There is no facility at Guantanamo Bay for carrying out executions.

The military has not executed anyone since 1961.

Military prosecutors charged that Ghailani purchased TNT, detonators, detonation cord and oxygen cylinderes and transported the bomb components to Dar es Salaam; moved the bomb components around to safe houses; and helped buy the truck used in the attack.

Ghailani allegedly then met up with co-conspirators in Nairobi, shortly before the bombing and flew with them to Karachi, one day before the bombing.

Critics of the military commission process charged that in this case, the US was trying to circumvent the US criminal court system, perhaps in order to keep under wraps testimony about treatment of prisoners in the secret CIA prisons where Ghailani was kept for two years.

The charges are unusual because they apply to an incident that happened before the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In fact, Gailani was indicted in a criminal court in New York in 2001 for the 1998 bombings, and four of his co-defendants were found guilty.

The Tanzania bombing was accompanied by a twin simultaneous attack on the US embassy in Nairobi, where 212 people were killed and thousands were injured. The twin attacks bore the hallmarks of al- Qaeda's methods, echoed in the 2001 terrorist attacks when four planes were hijacked and crashed.

Ghailani was seized in Gujarat, Pakistan, in July 2004 and his Uzbek wife was also detained with him, according to Human Rights Watch.

He was then held in secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before being brought to Guantanamo with a number of other such prisoners in September 2006, the organization's senior counterterrorism counsel, Jennifer Daskal, said.

The CIA has admitted to using torture-like methods such as water boarding in questioning some prisoners.

'It seems in this case there's absolutely no reason why the US wouldn't try him in the federal court system, which is established and respected and has credibility that the military commissions never will have,' Daskal told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

In the military commission process, the US can better limit information about its detention programme and how people were treated, Daskal said.

She said the charges represented an 'attempt to do an end run around the established rules of the criminal justice system.'

Ghailani is the fifteenth detainee against whom charges have been sworn under the Military Commissions Act. Last month, the US military said it was seeking the death penalty in six other cases, all of them directly suspected of planning the 9-11 attacks.

The charges against Ghailani must be reviewed and approved by a military official, Susan Crawford, a former military appeals court judge. She can then decide whether the death penalty is warranted under the charges.

The death penalty cases are likely to intensify criticism of the military commissions.

Some analysts believe the process could take years because the charges carry the death penalty, which could be challenged in some civilian courts. There is no facility at Guantanamo Bay for carrying out executions.

The military has not executed anyone since 1961.

Military prosecutors charged that Ghailani purchased TNT, detonators, detonation cord and oxygen cylinderes and transported the bomb components to Dar es Salaam; moved the bomb components around to safe houses; and helped buy the truck used in the attack.

Ghailani allegedly then met up with co-conspirators in Nairobi, shortly before the bombing and flew with them to Karachi, one day before the bombing.

Source: Monsters and Critics.com,