Four Guantanamo prisoners handed over to France

PARIS – Four of the seven French nationals held at the US prison complex at Guantanamo Bay were handed over to French authorities yesterday and flown back to France, where they were immediately taken into custody.

After a stopover in the Azores, the four were flown into the Evreux military base west of Paris from where they were to be taken to Paris for questioning by the domestic intelligence agency, the Directorate for Territorial Surveillance (DST). An agreement was reached earlier in the month on the hand-over of six of the seven French detainees, who have been held at the facility in Cuba without charge since being seized by US forces in Afghanistan.Their transfer had been requested by the French anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who has been investigating the men since November 2002 on possible terrorism charges, and was approved after France gave guarantees that they will face judicial proceedings.Foreign minister Michel Barnier said, “Like other countries have done, we proposed to the American authorities the repatriation of French nationals and they will be handed over to the French justice system.”Our concern is a humanitarian one.”The men can be held for four days before they must be presented to a judge, who may then place them under investigation for “criminal association in relation with a terrorist organisation” and order their continued detention.However judicial sources quoted in Le Monde newspaper yesterday described the four as “the jihad’s petty foot-soldiers” and said the case against them was thin.Officials named the four as Mourad Benchellali, Imad Kanouni, Nizar Sassi and Brahim Yadel.It was unclear why the two others – Ridouane Khalid and Khaled Ben Mustafa – were not included.The seventh man, Indian-born Mustaq Ali Patel, was not covered in the deal.Like most of the estimated 600 prisoners at the US base in Cuba, the French detainees were captured between the end of 2001 and early in 2002, when the United States went after Al-Qaeda and their Taliban hosts following the September 11 attacks.Their repatriation follows the transfer of several other Europeans, including five British men who were flown home in March.Altogether some 135 detainees have been sent back to their home countries from Guantanamo.Benchellali is the brother of Menad Benchellali, who was arrested in France in December 2002 in an investigation into an alleged “Chechen connection” in which Islamists were said to have been plotting attacks on Russian targets in France to avenge the bloodshed in Chechnya.Benchellali’s father, imam of a mosque in the Lyon suburb of Venissieux, and his younger brother Hafed are also in custody.The lawyer for one of the two men who were left off the flight said the decision to repatriate only four of the six was a “test by the Americans to see how the French authorities react.””The fate of the four who return to France will necessarily influence what happens to the three others,” said Jean-Marc Florand, who represents Khaled Ben Mustafa.The Communist mayor of Venissieux, Andre Gerin, hailed the return of the four as “a victory for the law… We have achieved our objective.Now we have to let justice do its work.”The United States had until recently refused all legal rights to the detainees held at Guantanamo, and only began to press charges against several of them after the US Supreme Court ruled last month that they had rights to both lawyers and access to civilian court.- Nampa-AFPAn agreement was reached earlier in the month on the hand-over of six of the seven French detainees, who have been held at the facility in Cuba without charge since being seized by US forces in Afghanistan.Their transfer had been requested by the French anti-terrorism prosecutor Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who has been investigating the men since November 2002 on possible terrorism charges, and was approved after France gave guarantees that they will face judicial proceedings.Foreign minister Michel Barnier said, “Like other countries have done, we proposed to the American authorities the repatriation of French nationals and they will be handed over to the French justice system.”Our concern is a humanitarian one.”The men can be held for four days before they must be presented to a judge, who may then place them under investigation for “criminal association in relation with a terrorist organisation” and order their continued detention.However judicial sources quoted in Le Monde newspaper yesterday described the four as “the jihad’s petty foot-soldiers” and said the case against them was thin.Officials named the four as Mourad Benchellali, Imad Kanouni, Nizar Sassi and Brahim Yadel.It was unclear why the two others – Ridouane Khalid and Khaled Ben Mustafa – were not included.The seventh man, Indian-born Mustaq Ali Patel, was not covered in the deal.Like most of the estimated 600 prisoners at the US base in Cuba, the French detainees were captured between the end of 2001 and early in 2002, when the United States went after Al-Qaeda and their Taliban hosts following the September 11 attacks.Their repatriation follows the transfer of several other Europeans, including five British men who were flown home in March.Altogether some 135 detainees have been sent back to their home countries from Guantanamo.Benchellali is the brother of Menad Benchellali, who was arrested in France in December 2002 in an investigation into an alleged “Chechen connection” in which Islamists were said to have been plotting attacks on Russian targets in France to avenge the bloodshed in Chechnya.Benchellali’s father, imam of a mosque in the Lyon suburb of Venissieux, and his younger brother Hafed are also in custody.The lawyer for one of the two men who were left off the flight said the decision to repatriate only four of the six was a “test by the Americans to see how the French authorities react.””The fate of the four who return to France will necessarily influence what happens to the three others,” said Jean-Marc Florand, who represents Khaled Ben Mustafa.The Communist mayor of Venissieux, Andre Gerin, hailed the return of the four as “a victory for the law… We have achieved our objective.Now we have to let justice do its work.”The United States had until recently refused all legal rights to the detainees held at Guantanamo, and only began to press charges against several of them after the US Supreme Court ruled last month that they had rights to both lawyers and access to civilian court.- Nampa-AFP