Posted on 07/18/2005 3:33:59 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
MADRID, Spain (AP) - The United States on Monday extradited a Moroccan held at Guantanamo Bay who was indicted in Spain for his alleged links to an al-Qaida cell, the Interior Ministry said.
Lahcen Ikassrien was accompanied by Interpol agents as he arrived in Madrid. Also known as Chej Hasan, Ikassrien was one of four people held in the U.S. detention center for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, whose extradition was sought in December, 2003, by Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon.
Another of the four, Spaniard Hamed Abderrahman Ahmad, was handed over in July 2004 but later freed on bail.
Garzon listed the four in an indictment he issued in September 2003, charging 35 people, including al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
In the extradition petition, Garzon noted that U.S. authorities had not charged the four men and that there was evidence against them in Spain.
The other two sought by Garzon from Guantanamo were Jamiel Abdul Latif Al Banna and Omar Deghayes.
Garzon said the four were suspected of having links to Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, the jailed alleged leader of an al-Qaida cell in Spain broken up in November 2001.
Yarkas and two fellow Syrians went on trial in late April in Madrid on charges of using Spain as a staging ground to help plot the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
Twenty-one other Muslims in the same trial, mainly Syrians and Moroccans, faced lesser charges of terrorism and other offenses. The trial concluded July 5 and a verdict is expected in September.
An Interior Ministry statement said Ikassrien was arrested and taken to Guantanamo Bay after the Sept. 11 attacks, but he was identified as Reswan A. Abdesalam. A subsequent fingerprint check revealed his true identity.
The statement said Ikassrien was arrested in Spain in 1995 and 1999 on drug charges. It said a false passport with his photograph but the name of Mohammed Haddad had been found in his possession.
Spain has arrested dozens of suspected terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001, and even more since the March 11 train bombings in Madrid in 2004.
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