Pentagon charges detainee with terrorism support

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon on Friday charged an accused al Qaeda training camp instructor with conspiracy and support of terrorism.

Noor Uthman Muhammed, a Sudanese man held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was accused of working as a weapons trainer from 1996 to 2000 at the Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan.

In the only accusation unrelated to his alleged work at the training camp, the U.S. military said Muhammed delivered a fax machine to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in 1999.

He was captured in Pakistan in March 2002, the U.S. military said.

The charges of conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism must be approved by a Pentagon appointee who oversees the war court at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo before trial proceedings can begin.

The Guantanamo tribunals are the first U.S. war crimes tribunals since World War Two. They were established after the September 11 attacks to try non-American captives whom the Bush administrations considers "enemy combatants" not entitled to the legal protections granted to soldiers and civilians.

The American Civil Liberties Union has criticized the military commissions system as inherently unfair to defendants, in part because it allows the use of hearsay and secret evidence to yield convictions.

(Reporting by Kristin Roberts; editing by Mohammad Zargham)