[JURIST] The US Department of Defense (DOD) [official website] announced [text] Monday that suspected Al Qaeda [JURIST news archive] operative Abdul Malik had been transferred to the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] prison over the weekend. According to the statement, Malik has confessed to participating in the 2002 Paradise Hotel attack [PBS attack] in Mombasa, Kenya, in which 13 people were killed when an explosive-filled SUV drove into the hotel lobby. He also admitted he attempted to shoot down an Israeli Boeing 757 civilian airliner carrying 271 passengers near Mombasa.

Malik is the first terror suspect to be transferred to Guantanamo since September 2004. The DOD release did not reveal his nationality or the details of his arrest. A review tribunal will now determine if Malik has enemy combatant [JURIST news archives] status. According to a statement from an anonymous senior defense official, Malik was not held in any secret CIA prisons [JURIST news archive] with the 14 "high-value" terror suspects [DNI profiles, PDF; JURIST news archive] transferred to Guantanamo last fall. The official also said that Kenya turned Malik over to US authorities in the past few weeks. DOD estimates that there are now approximately 385 detainees at Guantanamo Bay. AP has more.