These sworn charges allege that al Darbi joined a terrorist conspiracy with al Qaeda by the year 1997. In furtherance of this conspiracy, al Darbi is alleged to have attended the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan, to have received personal permission from Usama bin Laden to train at al Qaeda's Jihad Wahl training camp, and to have worked as a weapons instructor at al Qaeda's al Farouq training camp, both in Afghanistan. From approximately 2000 through 2002, al Darbi is also alleged to have committed multiple overt acts in support of a plot to bomb civilian oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and off the coast of Yemen.

Al Darbi dodged similar charges in 2009 when the Obama administration contemplated closing Guantanamo Bay. Those proceedings were delayed several times before being dismissed, but not before al Darbi announced his plan to boycott [JURIST reports] the military commission as a "sham" and a "crime against humanity." The original two charges were filed in 2008 [JURIST report] after it was alleged that the Saudi detainee had formerly conspired in support of terrorism. Al Darbi received his first infamous attention in 2007 when the Department of Defense revealed that he is the brother-in-law [JURIST report] of Khalid al Mihdar, a 9/11 hijacker. Al Darbi was captured in Azerbaijan in 2002.