KUALA LUMPUR: Two Malaysians who confessed to conspiring with an affiliate of Al Qaeda in the deadly bombing in Bali, Indonesia two decades ago could be returned to Malaysia before the end of the year under the plea deal agreed last week.
A jury of military officers in Guantanamo Bay will be tasked with choosing a sentence in the 20- to 25-year range, according to a report by The New York Times correspondent in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba on Monday.
However, the plea bargain agreement reached last week that helped avert lengthy litigation could see the duo, who spent years in secret Central Intelligence Agency prisons following their capture in 2003, returning to Malaysia.
The report said a portion of the plea agreement that envisioned their return to Malaysia remained a secret.
It said the sentencing proceedings for Mohammed Farik Amin, 48, and Mohammed Nazir Lep, 47, are part of a United States government strategy of trying to resolve Guantánamo's national security cases through plea negotiations.
Last week both men who are now detained at Guantanamo pleaded guilty to conspiring in a pair of suicide bombings on the resort island of Bali that killed 202 people on Oct 12, 2002.
They were charged alongside Indonesian Encep Nurjaman, better known as Hambali.
However, last October the NYT reported that Farik and Nazir had reached agreements with prosecutors at Guantanamo Bay to charges of being accessories to the terrorist attacks in Bali, and hence separating them from Hambali's case.
In pleading guilty, the duo agreed to testify against Hambali, the former leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah movement.
The NYT also reported as part of the plea agreement, both were questioned by prosecutors on Sunday and Monday, potentially for use in the trial of Hambali, which prosecutors want to hold next year. — Bernama