Free Republic

The State Department announced Wednesday that it has added two people to the federal list of designated terrorists, one of whom was once detained at Guantanamo Bay military prison. Ayrat Nasimovich Vakhitov, one of the newly added jihadists, was a former detainee at Guantanamo for less than two years from June 2002 until February 2004 before being turned over to Russian officials in his home country. Turkish authorities recently arrested Vahkitov in connection with the June 29 suicide bombings at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport that killed 42 people. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, U.S. and Turkish authorities...

MOSCOW (AP) - A Muslim cleric formerly held at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba said Tuesday U.S. guards there regularly desecrated the Qur'an by putting it into a toilet, although he added he never witnessed it himself. Airat Vakhitov, who described himself as a former imam of a mosque in Tatarstan, a majority Muslim republic in southern Russia, is one of seven men released from Guantanamo in 2004 and returned to Russia. He and the six others were held in Russia for three months, then released a year ago. Vakhitov said at a news conference organized by the state RIA-Novosti...

Russian Taliban Suspect Sues United States Created: 28.06.2005 18:10 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 18:10 MSK, 6 hours 31 minutes ago Alexandra Zaitseva Gazeta.ru A former Guantanamo prisoner who is a Russian national filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government. This Tatarstan resident, Airat Vakhitov, issued a statement Tuesday that is capable of sparking a new wave of anti-American protests in Muslim countries. In his lawsuit, which is being examined in a U.S. civil court, Vakhitov not only demands that the authorities admit to inhumane treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo camp, but insists that they acknowledge that a majority of...