[Ppnews] French appeals court frees former Guantanamo inmates

[Political Prisoner News]

French appeals court frees former Guantanamo inmates

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSLO49577
Tue Feb 24, 2009 10:43am EST
PARIS, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Five French former inmates of the 
Guantanamo Bay prison camp who had been convicted of criminal 
conspiracy linked to terrorism after returning to France were freed 
on Tuesday by an appeals court.

The court in Paris released the men on grounds the ruling was based 
on evidence illegally extracted by French security agents at the U.S. 
prison, a symbol of detainee abuse which U.S. President Barack Obama 
plans to shut down.

The court disqualified the evidence, saying French agents for 
security service DST could not simultaneously gather intelligence and 
conduct criminal investigations.

"We could not accept that (the interrogators) would question people 
imprisoned in a foreign territory, in conditions contrary to 
international conventions," Paul-Albert Iweins, the lawyer for one of 
the men, told Reuters.

The five -- Khaled ben Mustapha, Mourad Benchellali, Nizar Sassi, 
Redouane Khalid and Brahim Yadel -- said they were tortured during 
their stay at Guantanamo, where they each were held for one and a 
half to two years.

They returned to France in 2004 and 2005, were detained again as part 
of an agreement between Paris and Washington, and were tried and 
sentenced to one year in prison in 2007.

The ruling comes a day after the release of a British resident held 
at Guantanmo, which was set up to hold suspected al Qaeda and Taliban 
fighters captured by U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

With the ruling, all seven French citizens once held at Guantanamo 
have been released. Former inmate Imad Achab-Kanouni was freed after 
a trial in France, while another former prisoner, Mustaq Ali-Patel, 
was not prosecuted upon his return.

The five freed on Tuesday were arrested in Pakistan and Afghanistan 
between late 2001 and early 2002 and were accused of having received 
military training in Afghanistan in 2001. They confirmed they had 
visited such training camps but said they had not participated in any 
armed attacks. (Reporting by Thierry Leveque and Laurent Hamida; 
writing by Sophie Hardach; editing by Michael Roddy)





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