Bin Laden suspected coup plot: documents

Osama bin Laden suspected a coup plot against him when he ordered one of his proteges arrested shortly after the 9/11 attacks, according to leaked US documents released Friday.

A Saudi inmate at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay told interrogators he was arrested and tortured by Al-Qaeda forces as a spy in October 2001 in Afghanistan, according to a Defense Department memorandum, which was obtained by WikiLeaks.

The detainee, Abdul Bukhary, who had allegedly fought against Soviet forces in Afghanistan before joining Al-Qaeda, said he was imprisoned "due to a disagreement about the transfer of money" to an Uzbek militant leader, said the document, which was first reported in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

"This transfer was conducted without the knowledge of UBL (bin Laden) who believed it was a plan for a coup against him," it said.

The Uzbek militant was believed to be Juma Namagani, head of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the document, a "detainee assessment" produced by US military authorities running the prison at the remote US naval base in southeastern Cuba.

The Uzbek movement was created in 1998, and under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime in Afghanistan, it carved out bases in the north and opposed the government of President Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan.

The United States branded the group a terror organization in 2000 and the Uzbeks were forced out of Afghanistan by the US-led invasion in late 2001, finding shelter across the border in Pakistan's tribal belt.

Bukhary was taken to a Taliban prison in Kandahar and after the Taliban lost control of the area, he and other foreign inmates were handed over to US forces, who eventually transferred him to the Guantanamo detention camp.

The document, citing interrogations, described the Saudi detainee as a "veteran jihadist" who had attended Al-Qaeda training camps. As an inmate at Guantanamo, Bukhary had displayed a "hostile" attitude to guards and incited "mass disturbances" among inmates, it said.

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