US: Suspect is kin to 9/11 hijacker

[David]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A Saudi terrorism suspect facing possible charges before a military tribunal at Guantanamo has been identified as a brother-in-law of one of the Sept. 11 hijackers.

Ahmed Mohammed Ahmed Haza al-Darbi, who is accused of helping to organize an al-Qaida plot to attack a ship, is a brother-in-law of Khalid al-Mihdhar, a Saudi who was one of the hijackers who crashed a plane into the Pentagon, the military said in a statement late Friday.

Al-Darbi, 32, faces possible charges that include conspiracy and providing support to terrorism and could be sentenced to up to life in prison if convicted by the military court at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

Prosecutors have drawn up the charges and informed the detainee of the accusations against him, but military legal authorities are still reviewing the case and he has not yet been formally charged.

The military says al-Darbi was a trained al-Qaida operative who met with Osama bin Laden and helped organize a plot to attack a ship off Yemen or in the Strait of Hormuz. The military did not say whether his relationship with al-Mihdhar is connected to the accusations against him.

Al-Mihdhar and another hijacker lived in San Diego, before they boarded American Airlines Flight 77 on Sept. 11, 2001, as part of a team that crashed it into the Pentagon, killing 190 people on the ground and on the plane.

The U.S. holds about 290 men on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban at Guantanamo and authorities say they plan to charge between 80 and 90 before military tribunals, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the admitted architect of the Sept. 11 attacks.

So far, the U.S. has filed charges against three detainees and has charges pending against al-Darbi and one other detainee.