The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — An Iraqi-born Dutch citizen facing U.S. terrorism charges has been hit with new charges stemming from allegations that he beat a corrections officer unconscious.
Justice Department officials say Wesam al-Delaema, 35, pleaded not guilty in Washington D.C. Superior Court Monday to two counts of aggravated assault for allegedly beating Charles White, a correctional officer at the jail.
The alleged assault occurred in December 2007 during a jail riot involving Al-Delaema and six other inmates, who also are accused of attacking White, according to court documents.
Al-Delaema’s next hearing on the assault charges is scheduled for February.
Al-Delaema has been held in the D.C. jail since January 2007, after he was extradited from the Netherlands on allegations that he conspired to kill Americans in Iraq and use explosives to destroy U.S. property, among other charges.
He pleaded not guilty last year to the charges, which Justice Department officials called the first U.S. terror charges against insurgents targeting Americans in Iraq.
A hearing on those charges is scheduled for January, Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said Tuesday.
Al-Delaema had been wanted by the United States since 2003, when he and his fellow “Mujahideen from Fallujah” videotaped themselves planting explosives along an Iraq road used by U.S. troops. The explosives did not result in any deaths.
Al-Delaema has said he is innocent, and his lawyers have argued the U.S. does not have the right to try him.
As part of the extradition agreement with the Netherlands, al-Delaema will be tried in a federal court — not by a military commission such as those set up for terror suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Boyd told the Associated Press last year that the U.S. will also not oppose al-Delaema serving his sentence in a Dutch prison if he is convicted.
Boyd declined to comment Tuesday on where al-Delaema, if convicted on the assault charges, would serve his sentence.