6 ex-Guantanamo inmates on trial in France
AP on Yahoo ^ | 7/3/06 | Pierre-Antoine Souchard - ap
news.yahoo.com
PARIS - Six Frenchmen freed after years in the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison went on trial in a Paris court Monday on charges of links to terrorism.
The suspects were detained by U.S. forces in or near Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion to depose the Taliban government in late 2001. Prosecutors began the trial by recounting modern Afghan history and briefly questioning the defendants.
Former detainee Imad Kanouni told the court he traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 to pursue religious education because it was a popular destination for such voyages at the time.
But "I was ready to die for a good cause, defend people who were attacked in their countries," he said, insisting that he didn't agree with the ideas of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and never visited al-Qaida military training camps.
The trial is expected to run two weeks. The men, who spent between two and three years at Guantanamo, face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise."
The seven French citizens held at Guantanamo all were released in 2004 or 2005 and delivered to French authorities.
One was freed immediately with no charges filed, after French judicial officials said he had no link to Islamic extremism. Five were released but put under investigation and are now on trial.
A sixth currently on trial was never freed.
Most defendants were expected to plead not guilty. Kanouni's lawyer, Felix de Bellay, called the trial "intellectually as well as legally shocking."
Another defendant, Khaled ben Mustafa, told the court that he had been "sold" to U.S. forces in December 2001 by Pakistani villagers after he fled Afghanistan.
Defendant Nizar Sassi told the newspaper 20 Minutes that he hoped the charges would be dropped — "to give a strong response to what is happening at Guantanamo."
He called the base "a machine to create hate for the United States, to produce savage beasts," and accused prison authorities of physical and psychological torture, the newspaper reported Monday.
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that President Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military trials for some Guantanamo Bay detainees. The United States holds about 450 men at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban. |
