Warning: Undefined array key "rbname" in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 14
Hello !

Europe

New trial for France's 'Guantanamo six'

2007-12-05

A Paris court Monday heard details of a controversial French secret service mission to Guantanamo at the start of the retrial on terrorism charges of six former inmates at the US base. At the end of the original trial last year, Judge Jean-Claude Kross refused to hand down a verdict, saying he needed to know more about the Guantanamo mission -- whose very existence France initially denied. Mourad Benchellali, 26, Nizar Sassi, 27, Khaled Ben Mustapha, 35, Redouane Khalid, 39, Brahim Yadel, 37, and Imad Achab Kanouni, 30, were captured in 2001 during the US-led war to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan and handed over to US forces. Held for up to three years at the Guantanamo detention centre in Cuba, they were charged upon their return to France in 2004 and 2005 with "criminal conspiracy in relation to a terrorist enterprise. But defence lawyers argue that any information derived from their questioning by French intelligence officials in Guantanamo, outside of any legal framework, should be classed as inadmissible evidence. On Monday judge Kross read out several reports by the DST domestic intelligence agency, declassified for the purposes of the trial, which he said "give us a knowledge of the DST's activities" in Guantanamo "and the framework in which all of this happened." The DST files describe the six defendants' links to well-known Islamist circles including figures cited in several terrorism cases, but say they have committed no offence prosecutable in France. In a note dated February 2004, former DST chief Louis Caprioli wrote: "In case of a repatriation, there is no guarantee they will be placed under investigation and jailed, since they are linked to no activities in France liable for prosecution." Lawyer William Bourdon welcomed the declassification of the intelligence reports. "We hope the court will draw the consequences of the extreme disloyalty with which the French secret services behaved towards the French detainees Guantanamo," he told reporters. "We hope that the court will recall the law: by saying that no one can be convicted if the proof was secured by disloyal means. Acquittal is the only outcome." During their initial 10-day trial last year, some of the six admitted to staying in Afghan camps linked to Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but all denied fighting US forces or planning attacks in Europe. Last year the French state attorney called for all but Kanouni to be found guilty, but asked for lenient, one-year prison sentences, saying their "abnormal detention" in Guantanamo should be taken into account. Though none is currently in detention, all six spent periods in pre-trial custody and could therefore expect to avoid jail. All but Yadel -- held up for professional reasons -- were present for Monday's hearing. The trial is set to run until December 12.

Link

Europe

French prosecutor seeks jail for 5 Gitmo hard boyz

2006-07-12

Jail. Sorta. Suspended. Y'urp-peon sentencing guidelines. PARIS - A French public prosecutor called on Tuesday for five former Guantanamo Bay inmates to be jailed for a year for their links to Al Qaeda and said there was not enough evidence to convict a sixth defendant. Sonya Djemni-Wagner condemned the men’s detention at the U.S. military camp on the Caribbean island of Cuba but told a terrorism trial at the main Criminal Court in Paris that the men had to pay for their actions. “I do not approve of Guantanamo and I cannot but take into account the detention they endured there. But that detention does not wipe out the wrong they did,” Djemni-Wagner told the court. “Whatever they did, these men did not deserve the fate that was reserved for them, which is unworthy of a democracy,” she said. Ah, shuddup and jug 'em. Save the politicizing for your next campaign. Should presiding judge Jean-Claude Kross and his two assessors follow her recommendation, the accused will be freed even if convicted because they have spent between 12 and 18 months in French prisons on their return from Guantanamo. And 12 months equals five years in Y'urp detention time. The prosecutor said five defendants had gone to Afghanistan via London, had been taken in hand by aides to Osama bin Laden and underwent military training in Al Qaeda camps. Sounds like five years in American jug time to me ... Djemni-Wagner said investigators had failed to prove the guilt of the sixth defendant, Imad Achab-Kanouni, 29. He denied going to Afghanistan to join Al Qaeda training camps, saying he went there only to receive fundamentalist Islamic instruction. Which is one and the time, but the French court can't bear to admit that ... Djemni-Wagner requested terms of four years in prison, three of them suspended, for Khaled ben Mustapha, Mourad Benchellali, Nizar Sassi and Redouane Khalid. She further sought five years in jail, with four suspended, against Brahim Yadel, the only one of the six men held in custody throughout the trial. I mean, why make an example? Lawyers for all six men say their clients should be freed as the case against them was based on secret interviews conducted by French intelligence agents while the men were held at Guantanamo Bay. Make sure their friends all know they sang like canaries ... French courts have already ruled detention in the U.S. military facility illegal in their effete opinion, and a report that French intelligence agents had interviewed the men at Guantanamo disrupted the trial on its second day. The Foreign Ministry said in a statement last week it had made no secret of three administrative visits to the camp. "We done it in the open!" Presiding judge Kross refused to suspend hearings and said he would take the matter into account at the end of the trial.

Link

Europe

GTMO Frenchmen go on trial in Paris

2006-07-04

Six French former inmates of the U.S. military detention center in Guantanamo Bay stood trial in a French court on Monday, denying accusations of links with a network plotting terrorism attacks. "Non! Non! Certainement pas!" The six, who have all spent lengthy periods in detention in Cuba and in France, face up to 10 years in prison if convicted. The prosecution alleges the men joined a terrorism network based in Britain and the Afghan-Pakistan border, having passed through Britain en route to al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. But the accused said they only went there out of curiosity. "I wanted to take some risks," Nizar Sassi, one of the defendants, told the court. "It was cool. It was a chance to live my passion for weapons." "Yer honor, if you buy my lame story you are proving everything my imam told me about kufrs to be absolutely true." Khaled ben Mustapha said he had gone to Kabul to look for a house for his family, adding: "Going to Afghanistan doesn't make you a terrorist." A third accused, Imad Kanouni, said he wanted to learn more about religion while traveling. "Afghanistan was in fashion," he told the court. "Jihad was the new black in the Fall 2001 collections, yer honor!" Prosecutors say five of the six men trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan between 2000 and 2001 and that Kanouni had fundamentalist religious training there. Defense lawyers say, at most, their clients were guilty only of naivety in remaining in Afghanistan when U.S. forces arrived after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. Presiding trial judge Jean-Claude Kross said the six men, aged between 24 and 38, were captured in mid December as they tried to flee the advance of U.S forces and their Afghan allies. Some were handed over by villagers for a prize of up to 5,000 euros ($6,399). Pakistani forces later handed them over to the U.S. military who transferred them to Guantanamo Bay, convinced they had fought for Afghanistan's ousted Islamist Taliban regime. Benchellali has admitted attending a training camp in Afghanistan, but said friends dragged him into it. The six were held at Guantanamo without charge or trial along with hundreds of other "enemy combatants", and they have complained of insults, physical and psychological torture, and deprivation of food and water. Right on schedule, right out of the Al-Q playbook. Has Andrew Sullivan filed an amicus brief yet? Sassi, Mustapha, Kanouni, Mourad Benchellali and Redouane Khalid spent several months in French jail before being released under judicial controls. A sixth man, Brahim Yadel, had remained in custody. The verdict is expected in mid-July.

Link

Warning: Undefined property: stdClass::$T in /data/rantburg.com/www/pgrecentorg.php on line 132
-3 More