SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: A Guantanamo Bay prisoner who helped run an Al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan will serve less than three years in prison under a plea deal that requires him to testify against other suspected terrorists, the US military said Friday. A war crimes court at the US base in Cuba formally sentenced Noor Uthman Muhammed to 14 years in confinement but the Pentagon will suspend all but 34 months of the sentence under the pretrial agreement, said Army Lt. Col. Tanya Bradsher, a military spokeswoman. oor, as the prisoner is known, pleaded guilty Tuesday to providing material support to Al-Qaeda and conspiracy as part of a plea deal that spared him the possibility of a life sentence if convicted at trial. He has already been held nearly nine years at Guantanamo and does not get credit for time already served in custody. The Sudanese prisoner admitted working at the Khaldan terrorist training camp in Afghanistan beginning in 1994 and providing weapons instruction there and helping to run it. The terrorists who have trained there included Ahmed Ressam, who was convicted in a plot to bomb buildings in the US during millennium celebrations, and convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, according to a stipulation that Noor signed as part of his plea deal. He also admitted that he helped arrange terrorism training for others with Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian and alleged facilitator for Al-Qaeda who was subjected to harsh interrogation in a special anti-terror program authorized by former US President George W. Bush. Zubaydah is held at Guantamamo and has not yet been tried for any alleged crimes. Noor is the sixth prisoner convicted at the war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo. Four of those convictions have been plea bargains. Al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman Al-Zawahri, issued the terror network's first message since the upheaval began in Egypt, saying the country's rule has long “deviated from Islam” and warning that democracy “can only be non-religious.”
