20 Algerians still in Guantanamo, says ex-detainee

Twenty Algerians remain in Guantanamo Bay prison, according to an Algerian detainee recently freed by the United States.

• “I used to meet many of the twenty Algerians and talk about detention conditions,” Muammer Amer told Echorouk.
• “None of them belong to Al-Qaeda or the Taliban movement. That’s for sure,” he said.
• Amer was released in October after he had been held in Bagram prison in Afghanistan and Guantanamo for 6 years.
• “Those Algerians including me were always terrified in prison. The US spread false rumours about torture in Algeria.”
• According to Guantanamo ex-detainee, some of them are tempted to be transferred to Europe or the Gulf.
• “It happened to me. I said I would come back to Algeria even if I was tortured because I have nothing to do with terrorism.”
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• “It is not true that the Algerian prisoners refuse to return home.”
• “US authorities did not find any evidence against me. I was mistakenly arrested as the US investigators were searching for a Sudanese who was living with me in the same building in Pakistan,” Amer said.
• “They did not want to release me though I was jailed in Pakistan for 2 years before I had been transferred to Baghram prison in Afghanistan.”
• The ex-Algerian prisoner believes that detention conditions in Guantanamo are better than in Baghram where detainees are exposed to psychological torture and pressure.
• “Most of Algerian detainees in Guantanamo are students or employees at charity institutions in Pakistan.”
•  “They have no link to Al-Qaeda or Taliban,” he stressed.
• He says security authorities in Algeria welcomed him and he is living now with his family.  “A court in Algiers is handling my case as I have lost all my ID.