Algerian former Guantanamo detainee pleads innocent
A court in Algiers acquitted an Algerian former Guantanamo inmate Sunday of terror-related and counterfeiting charges.
- Mustapha Hamlili told the judge he went to Peshawar in 1986 to find a job. He was trained on weapons in Afghanistan camps and was arrested in 2002 in Pakistanth’s attacks. following the September 11
- “My tragedy started when I was arrested and put in Guantanamao where I have been tortured for six years,” he said.
- The US government deported Hamlili to Algeria in 2008. He answered all the judge’s questions about his involvement in Al-Qaeda’s acts in Afghanistan.
- Suspect Haderbache did not appear in court because he was hospitalised after he had nervous breakdown in Guantanamo.
- Hamlili said he worked in a charity organisation in the Pakistani Afghan borders along with his cousin. “Our job was to provide refugees with food.” In 1991, he came back to Algeria and went to Pakistan in 1997. He get married there and worked as a teacher of Arabic. After the September 11th’s attacks, he travelled to Yemen. Then, he went to Afghanistan with an Iraqi passport. He was trained on Kalashnikov and was arrested in Pakistan where the US received him and questioned him about his involvement in the attacks.
- Hamlili said he had nothing to do with terrorism and he was taken to Guantanamo along with another Algerian man named Al Aziz. “He is still there. He was my guest when I was arrested.”
- He also told the judge the US government offered $5,000 to anyone who could help it in catching foreigners from Morocco, Iraq or Algeria.
- “Investigators were in civilian clothes. They took samples of my hair, saliva and eyes to analyse them. They also injected us inside cold iron rooms where I have been staying for six years.”
- “I came back to life after my deportation to Algeria,” he added.