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French Justice: Train with al-Qaeda, Get Out of Jail Free
New Majority ^ | John Rosenthal

Posted on 03/02/2009 9:41:20 AM PST by Sergeant Tim

Last Tuesday, a Parisian appeals court overturned the convictions of five former Guantanamo inmates who had been found guilty on terrorist conspiracy charges in 2007. The development should give pause to wonder not only about the wisdom of plans to transfer Guantanamo inmates to European countries (see my earlier New Majority piece here), but more fundamentally about the very idea of treating the "disposition" of Guantanamo inmates as an issue for civilian courts, whether in the US or abroad. The five French Gitmo detainees were repatriated to France in 2004 and 2005. They were tried and convicted on charges of belonging to a "criminal association formed for the purpose of undertaking a terrorist act." The definition of this crime in French law is exceptionally broad ...

The five former Gitmo detainees, however, did not merely have casual contact with members of a terror group. All five have admitted to receiving military training in Al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. They were taken prisoner in the Afghan-Pakistani border region in late 2001, while fleeing the Battle of Tora-Bora. The five men -- Brahim Yadel, Mourad Benchellali, Nizar Sassi, Redouane Khalid, and Khaled ben Mustafa -- have provided various far-fetched alibis that are supposed to explain how they could have found themselves training in Qaeda camps, but still somehow not be implicated in Qaeda's wars. Undoubtedly, the most amusingly incongruous of these alibis comes to us by way of none other than the New York Times, which in June 2006 published an "op-ed" signed by Mourad Benchellali [see five names above]. In the article, Benchellali claims that he left France for Afghanistan in early summer 2001 to go on a "dream vacation."

(Excerpt) Read more at newmajority.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: afghanistan; alqaeda; europe; european; france; french; gitmo; guantanamo; obama; pakistan; wot
Read the rest at the jump.
1 posted on 03/02/2009 9:41:20 AM PST by Sergeant Tim
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To: Just Lori; TheForceOfOne; SilvieWaldorfMD; Tennessee Nana; ThreePuttinDude; eastsider; del4hope; ..

Ping!


2 posted on 03/02/2009 9:43:53 AM PST by Sergeant Tim (In the War on Terror, there is no place to run from here.)
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To: Sergeant Tim

If any GITMO released prisoners plan and execute a huge terrorist attack that kills thousands of people like 9/11, Obambi can kiss his presidency goodbye.


3 posted on 03/02/2009 10:49:42 AM PST by Ev Reeman
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To: Ev Reeman

If that happens.

The democrats can kiss their party good by.

Rank and file democrats will be attacked on the streets by people who have lost family members.


4 posted on 03/02/2009 1:05:15 PM PST by kennyboy509 (Ha! I kill me!)
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