Ex-Guantanamo Prisoner to Be Brought Before French Court Without Legal Charges
The Algerian Saber al-Ahmar, who has been held for eight years at Guantanamo, and was acquitted and then welcomed in France in 2009, will be tried from Tuesday to Friday in Paris on suspicion of making an extremist call and inciting to leave Iraq or Syria for aspiring jihadists.
Saber Al-Ahmar was born in May 1969 in Algeria, received a degree in Islamic sciences, and, according to justice, became a member of the Armed Islamic Group.
Then, he left for a few years to complete his studies in Medina, Saudi Arabia, before appearing in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1996 and 2001, working especially in a large mosque in Sarajevo, considered a gathering place for Islamists.
The Bosnians handed him over to the Americans in early 2002, along with five other Algerians, on suspicion of planning an attack on the United States Embassy.
He was transferred to the Guantanamo military prison on the island of Cuba, where he was held until 2008, before the US justice acquitted him.
President Nicolas Sarkozy accepts the principle of welcoming former camp convicts to France. They will be Lakhdar Boumediene and Saber El Ahmar, who set foot in France on December 1, 2009.
“Guantanamo will stay with me for the rest of my life. It wasn’t ordinary torture and it wasn’t eight days”, he told AFP in 2012.
Then the French judiciary took over to establish its hexagram from 2010. As for the prosecution, the person who appears to be acting “religious guide” He works quickly as the imam of the Saint-André de Cubzac (Gironde) mosque, but also in a secret prayer room located above Mohamed H.’s restaurant, and the other is involved.
He is suspected of having links with several jihadist figures in France, including Lionel Dumont, a former Islamic robber of the “Gang of Rubiks”, or Mohamed Shamlan, the leader of the Islamic Forsan al-Ezza group.
“We have no evidence in this file that could show that Saber al-Ahmar would have caused the departure of two people.” In the Iraqi Syrian region, Christian Blazy, his lawyer, Alex Villanov, challenged me.
The person who was indicted and imprisoned in June 2017 will appear under arrest “A victim of his reputation as a former Guantanamo detainee but (…) after eight years of detention, he was released without any legal charges being brought against him”, Mr Blazy added.
