Official: Two former Guantanamo detainees arrested in Belgium

[rangerrebew]

Official: Two former Guantanamo detainees arrested in Belgium


By Paul Cruickshank, CNN


Updated 5:04 PM ET, Fri July 24, 2015
 

 (CNN)—Two former detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba were arrested by Belgian police in a counterterrorism operation targeting a recruiting network for al Qaeda in Syria.

They were arrested Wednesday night along with three others as they were about to break into a house to raise funds in the town of Hoboken, near Antwerp, a senior Belgian counterterrorism official told CNN.

"We have dismantled a serious recruiting network for Syria," the official told CNN.

One of the former Guantanamo Bay detainees was Moussa Zemmouri, 37, a Moroccan national born in Antwerp, Belgian federal prosecutors announced Friday. The other was an Algerian identified as Soufiane A., who prosecutors believe spent time in Syria.

Both have been charged with participating in the activities of a terrorist group and all five have been charged with attempted armed robbery.

Zemmouri was released from Guantanamo in 2005 and authored a book "Innocent at Guantanamo" after returning to Belgium. His case was featured prominently by the UK Muslim prisoner advocacy group CAGE, which has long maintained that he has no links to terrorism.


According to a 2003 detainee assessment file posted by the WikiLeaks website, Zemmouri was transferred to U.S. custody after he was detained by Pakistani police when fleeing Afghanistan after the beginning of the U.S. bombing campaign in autumn 2001.

The document alleged he had trained in the al Qaeda-sponsored Derunta training camp in Khost, Afghanistan. It said "sensitive reporting also indicates that detainee is a high-ranking member of the Theological Commission of the Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group (MIFG)."

According to the Belgian official, Zemmouri was put under observation after his return to Belgium. Belgian security services suspect he provided theological encouragement to several former members of the al Qaeda affiliated MIFG who left to fight jihad in Syria after they completed prison sentences in Belgian jails.

The official said there was no indication the group was plotting an attack in Belgium.

Efforts to immediately reach an attorney for Zemmouri were unsuccessful.

Belgian officials know of the identity of more than 300 extremists who have traveled from Belgium to join jihadi groups in Syria.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/24/politics/former-guantanamo-detainees-arrested-belgium/index.html

[Paladin]

Meanwhile back at the ranch:

The Obama administration is in the "final stages of drafting a plan to safely and responsibly" close the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay, White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday.

"That has been something that our national security officials have been working on for quite some time," Earnest said.

Earnest was responding to a question about a story in The New York Times that says the effort to close the prison, one of the first promises the president made back in 2009 upon taking office, was faltering and "collapsing again."

Any plan would have to be approved by Congress, which has placed significant obstacles in the way of transferring detainees out of the prison.

Currently a ban exists on moving detainees into the United States, a significant impediment to emptying the prison of the 116 alleged terrorists currently housed there.

The Obama administration argues the prison acts as a recruiting tool for terrorists abroad, given its reputation for holding suspected terrorists indefinitely.

"Continuing to operate that prison is not an effective use of our taxpayer resources, and it certainly is not consistent with our national security interests," Earnest said Wednesday.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/22/politics/guantanamo-bay-closing-plans-obama-earnest/