Three Freed Gitmo Detainees Back in Bosnia

Three of five Guantanamo Bay detainees, who were recently freed by a United States judge, have been returned to Bosnia after seven years of imprisonment at the camp.

The three Algerian-born men who have Bosnian citizenship, Mustafa Ait Idir, Hadj Boudella, Mohammed Nechle, arrived at Sarajevo airport aboard an unscheduled flight on Tuesday evening. The other two Guantanamo prisoners, who have Bosnian residency but not citizenship, could soon be joining them, local media reported on Wednesday.

“Try to understand how happy I feel. For seven years I was held at the end of the world, in the worst place in the world,” one of the three freed men, Mustafa Ait Idir, told media upon joining his family.

The release of the three men came after on November 21 a United States federal judge, Richard J. Leon of the US District Court in Washington, ruled that the five naturalised Bosnian former Islamist fighters were held unlawfully for nearly seven years and ordered their release. A petition for the sixth man was denied after evidence proved his "links with Al-Qaeda.”

The six men are among a group of Guantanamo inmates who in October won a Supreme Court ruling which said that a 2006 law unconstitutionally stripped the prisoners of their right to contest their imprisonment in habeas corpus lawsuits.

Mustafa Ait Idir, Hadj Boudella, Mohammed Nechle, Lakhdar Boumediene, Belkacem Bensayeh, and Saber Lahmar first came to Bosnia between 1992 and 1995 to fight in the Bosnian war on the side of Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims).

The US government claimed that all six men had been planning to travel to Afghanistan to join “Al-Qaeda” and take up arms against US and allied forces there. Yet in five out of six cases, the government “failed” to provide corroborated evidence to support its claim, said Judge Richard J. Leon in his ruling.

“The Court must and will grant their petition and order their release,” the ruling said.

Yet in the case of Belkacem Bensayeh, the US government has provided “credible and reliable evidence” linking the man to “a senior Al-Qaeda facilitator.” Because of this, Bensayeh’s petition was rejected and his imprisonment is deemed to be lawful, the judge concluded.

Immediately following the ruling, the five prisoners have entered the release process and first three, Mustafa Ait Idir, Hadj Boudella, Mohammed Nechle, were sent to Bosnia on Tuesday. They were welcomed by their families and a few dozen friends at Sarajevo airport.

At the airport they were taken over by the state police, which released them to their families immediately after identity control.

The other two men, whose release has been ordered but who do not have Bosnian citizenship, could also soon be delivered to Bosnia, media reported.

The case of the so-called “Algerian Six” has been haunting Bosnian authorities, who – under strong American pressure – arrested the group in October 2001 on suspicion of plotting to bomb the US and British embassies in Sarajevo. However, after a three-month investigation by Interpol, and by Bosnian and US authorities, the Supreme Court of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina found no evidence to support terrorism charges and on January 17, 2002 it ordered their release.

Instead, as soon as the men left Sarajevo Central Jail on the morning of January 18, they were handed over to US custody. On the same day they were transported to Tuzla in northeast Bosnia and then to a US military base in Incirlik, Turkey, before arriving at Guantanamo Bay on January 20.

The Human Rights Chamber of Bosnia and Herzegovina has been claiming that the Bosnian government broke its own as well as European law by allowing the US to take the six men to Guantanamo.