Ex-Guantanamo prisoners.....they ain't altar boys.....
Maulvi Abdul Ghaffar, captured in Afghanistan in December 2001, was one of the twenty-three prisoners released from Camp Delta in late January 2004. After his release, he joined the remnants of the Taliban and was killed in a gunfight on September 26, 2004.[71]
Abdullah Mehsud, also captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 after surrendering to Abdul Rashid Dostum, masterminded the kidnapping of two Chinese engineers in Pakistan's South Waziristan region as well as returning to his position as an Al-Qaeda field commander.[72] Mehsud has also claimed responsibility for the bombing at Islamabad's Marriott Hotel in October 2004. The blast injured seven people, including a U.S. diplomat, two Italians and the Pakistani prime minister's chief security officer.
Airat Vakhitov and Rustam Akhmyarov, two Russian nationals captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 (in a Taliban prison, in Vakhitov's case) and released from Guantánamo in 2004, were arrested by Russian authorities on August 27, 2005. The two former detainees were arrested in Moscow for allegedly preparing a series of attacks in Russia.
en.wikipedia.org
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6 former Gitmo inmates go on trial in France
thenewanatolian.com
Six Frenchmen captured in or around Afghanistan and held at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay went on trial Monday for suspected links to terrorism, but they asked the court not to confuse zealousness with terror.
One suspect, 25-year-old Nizar Sassi, using the witness stand to denounce the U.S. prison camp, said it was at Guantanamo, not during his travels, that he discovered religion.
"They took everything away from us. They left us with one thing: the Koran," Sassi said, referring to the Muslim holy book.
The Paris hearing comes just four days after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that U.S. President George W. Bush overstepped his authority in ordering military trials for a handful of Guantanamo Bay detainees - the latest challenge to the contested camp.
The Paris proceedings opened with prosecutors recounting modern Afghan history and briefly questioning the suspects, most of whom had been detained by U.S. forces in or near Afghanistan in 2001 after the U.S.-led invasion.
Suspect Imad Kanouni, 29, told the Paris court he traveled to Afghanistan in 2001 to pursue religious education because it was a popular destination at the time for such voyages. He told investigators that he was in search of "a pure Islam."
But "I was ready to die for a good cause, defend people who were attacked in their countries," he said. However, he insisted that he did not agree with the ideas of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and never visited Al-Qaeda military training camps.
The trial, presided over by judge Jean-Claude Kross, is expected to run two weeks. The men, who spent between two to three years at Guantanamo, face up to 10 years in prison if convicted of "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise."
Their time at Guantanamo would not be deducted from any sentence here.
A total of seven French citizens were held at Guantanamo, and all have been sent back to France. One was freed immediately with no charges filed. French judicial officials have said that Mustaq Ali Patel, who has joint French and Indian nationality, had no link to Islamic extremism.
The other six, all on trial, were placed under investigation. Five of them - Kanouni, Sassi, Mourad Benchellali, Ridouane Khalid and Khaled ben Mustafa - have been released from jail. Only Brahim Yadel is still behind bars. |
