Guantanamo tribunal gives Osama bin Laden cook 14 years in jail

Osama bin Laden's cook has been given 14 years in jail by a Guantanamo Bay tribunal after admitting providing material support for terrorism.

Sudanese Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, 50, is only the fourth Guantanamo detainee to be convicted since it was opened in 2002. A plea bargain could substantially reduce the time he spends in prison.

Judge Nancy Paul, an Air Force lieutenant colonel, told jurors they could sentence al-Qosi to between 12 and 15 years — a range that is reportedly well above the terms of the plea bargain. He will not receive credit for the eight years and seven months he has spent in confinement.

As part of the plea agreement, al-Qosi signed a statement saying that he followed bin Laden after the al Qaeda leader's expulsion from Sudan in 1996 and worked for him in Afghanistan.

He said he only learned of al Qaeda's involvement in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in East Africa and the 9/11 attack on New York after the event and was not involved in their planning.

Human Rights Watch lawyer Andrea Prasow said: "To find out that the first conviction under the Obama administration is accompanied by a secret plea agreement, coupled with a dummy sentence, is really troubling. I think this proceeding was a farce."