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By Jane Sutton

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - A U.S. military tribunal on Wednesday sentenced Osama bin Laden's former cook to 14 years in prison, but he is expected to serve far less under a plea deal that remains secret.

The defendant, Sudanese captive Ibrahim al Qosi, pleaded guilty last month in the war crimes court at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. naval base to charges of conspiring with al Qaeda and providing material support for terrorism.

Qosi, a 50-year-old with a white beard, has been held at Guantanamo for more than eight years.

Military officials said it could be several months before his full plea agreement is made public. But the al-Arabiya television network based in Dubai quoted unidentified sources as saying it caps his sentence at two years.

Qosi acknowledged that he knew al Qaeda was a terrorist group when he ran one of the kitchens in bin Laden's Star of Jihad compound in Afghanistan.

Qosi, who met bin Laden in Sudan and travelled with him to Afghanistan, also admitted helping the al Qaeda leader escape U.S. forces in the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan.

He said he had no involvement in or prior knowledge of terrorist attacks.

Qosi was the first Guantanamo captive convicted under the administration of President Barack Obama, whose efforts to shut down the detention camp have been blocked by Congress.

His sentencing hit a snag because, according to the judge, the U.S. military ignored orders to develop a plan specifying how prisoners would serve their sentences after conviction in the Guantanamo tribunals.

COMMUNAL CONFINEMENT
Qosi wanted to avoid serving his in solitary confinement. His plea deal required the convening authority overseeing the trial to recommend that Qosi serve his time in Camp Four, where detainees live communally under fewer restrictions than in the other camps.

But military rules forbid housing convicted criminals with other detainees.

The judge, Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Nancy Paul, said an assistant defence secretary ordered two years ago that the Army and the military's Southern Command, which oversees the Guantanamo base, develop a detailed plan for housing prisoners after their conviction.

"This has not been done," the judge said tersely.

She said the absence of any written policy or plan was "especially troubling" because another trial was under way for a young Canadian captive and could produce another conviction.

She ruled that Qosi's plea agreement was still valid because it only called for a recommendation that he be housed in the communal camp, and did not guarantee he would be.

The judge directed that Qosi remain in Camp Four for 60 days while the military works out where he would serve the rest of his sentence.

Qosi is the fourth captive convicted in the tribunals created to try non-U.S. terrorism suspects after the al Qaeda attacks of September 11, 2001. Two served short sentences and were sent home to Australia and Yemen.

The only other convict remaining at Guantanamo is Ali Hamza al Bahlul, a Yemeni who was an al Qaeda videographer. He is serving a life sentence for conspiring with al Qaeda and providing material support for terrorism.

"He is separated from the general population," said a Guantanamo spokesman, Navy Commander Brad Fagan. He declined to elaborate except to say, "He's by himself."


Once Qosi returns to Sudan, he will enter a program that is run by the Sudanese intelligence service and is designed to rehabilitate those with radical views, defence lawyers said. Nine other Sudanese captives have gone through the program upon repatriation from Guantanamo, they said.

After completing the program, Qosi will then return to live with his family but will be monitored to ensure he has no contact with radicals, they said.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Reuters