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Posted on 01/06/2004 6:57:45 PM PST by blam
Father of Guantanamo Bay Detainee Held
Tuesday January 6, 2004 11:46 PM
By JEAN-BAPTISTE LABEUR
Associated Press Writer
LYON, France (AP) - An Islamic cleric whose son is being held at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was among seven people detained by French security agents Tuesday as part of an investigation into suspected terror networks.
The imam, Chellali Benchellali, was arrested at his home in the tough Minguettes high-rise neighborhood of Venissieux, a suburb of the southeastern city of Lyon, said a lawyer for the family.
Attorney Jacques Debray said the imam's wife and one of his sons, Hafid, also were detained in the sweep by the DST, France's secretive counterterrorism and counterintelligence agency.
Another of his sons, Mourad Benchellali, is among six French detainees suspected of ties to the al-Qaida terrorist network who are being held at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay.
French agents Tuesday also arrested another imam, Mourad Merabet, who runs a pharmacy at the Minguettes, and Abdelwahed Regad, a 27-year-old quality controller at a Muslim abattoir, said friends and neighbors.
Police confirmed that five people were detained in Venissieux and said another two were arrested elsewhere in the Lyon region. There were no immediate details about the last two.
Some of those detained are believed to have provided logistical support, possibly including false papers, to suspected terrorists, police said, without providing further details.
About 100 people, some wearing scarves over their faces, protested in Venissieux against the arrests later Tuesday. Some shouted: ``We are treated like animals'' and ``We are in the basement of France.''
The arrests were ordered by anti-terror magistrate Jean-Louis Bruguiere, who has been using his sweeping powers of detention and investigation to probe suspected links between Islamic militants in France and rebels in Russia's breakaway, largely Muslim republic of Chechnya.
Bruguiere has previously said that the volatile Caucasus region, including Chechnya and Georgia, has become a training ground for Islamic militants who return to Europe to conduct attacks after being taught how to use chemical weapons and other arms.
A third son of the imam, Menad Benchellali, was picked up in the Paris region during a sweep a year ago that authorities said thwarted planned bomb or toxic gas attacks in France and Russia by a terror cell with ties to Chechen rebels and al-Qaida.
The December 2002 raids in the Paris suburbs of Romainville and La Courneuve turned up diagrams of chemical formulas for explosives and a substance that could make toxic gas, judicial officials said at the time.
Counterterrorism agents also found electronic components, a suit against chemical and biological attacks and radiation, two empty gas canisters and false identity papers.
French authorities have said that Menad Benchellali trained with Chechen rebels and met high-level al-Qaida operatives in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which borders Chechnya.
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No, let the Islamists have it for a few centuries.
How could he tell the difference?
Did it suddenly smell better...less mold? Were the rats rude to him?
I've read here on FR that the Dutch population under the age of 18 is 50% Muslim. Scary if true.
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