Posted on 01/17/2002 10:49:15 PM PST by Pericles
Friday January 18 2:25 AM ET
Official: U.S. to Seize Terrorism Suspects in Bosnia
By Charles Aldinger and Andrew Gray
WASHINGTON/SARAJEVO, Bosnia (Reuters) - The United States has vowed its troops will take control of six Arabs who had been detained in Bosnia on suspicion of involvement in terrorism but whose release was ordered by a court Thursday.
``We intend to take custody as they are released individually,'' a U.S. defense official, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters in Washington.
A Bosnian court Thursday ordered the release of the six, five Algerians and a Yemeni, detained by local police in October on suspicion of involvement in international terrorism and links to the al Qaeda network of fugitive Osama bin Laden.
More than 100 protesters angry at the U.S. decision to detain the men in spite of the court ruling gathered outside Sarajevo's central prison in snow and freezing temperatures.
The protesters, some of whom wore traditional Islamic attire such as veils and headdresses, sat in the road to block vehicles driven by Bosnian special police which left the prison in the early hours of Friday and were presumed to hold the suspects.
After several hours of scuffles and standoffs, the police appeared to have got all three vehicles out of the area around the prison. There was no immediate word from U.S. forces on whether the suspects were now in their custody.
The six, five of whom hold Bosnian citizenship, were arrested in October by police acting on a U.S. tip after threats closed the U.S. and British embassies in Sarajevo for five days that month.
Fahrija Karkin, head of a team of lawyers representing the six, said outside the prison he had been told the men would be given over to the United States and held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
``We received information that these people will be extradited to a third country. And what I was hearing (is that) it is America, Cuba,'' he said.
PEACEKEEPING DUTIES EXPANDED
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said American peacekeeping troops in Bosnia might expand their duties to hunt possible suspects in the war on terrorism sparked by the devastating September 11 attacks on the United States.
The freeing of the six Arabs was ordered by the Supreme Court of Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation. The court said in its ruling, made available to Reuters, that there was no justification for prolonging their detention.
In response to an appeal from lawyers who fear NATO will spirit the suspects out of the country, the state's top human rights body then ordered local authorities to do everything to prevent four of them from being taken from Bosnia by force.
In the weeks that followed the September attacks on the United States, Bosnian police and NATO-led peacekeepers arrested more than 20 people, mostly of Arab origin, on suspicion they were involved in or supported terrorism.
Most have either been released or deported but the six are seen as a more serious case. Federation Deputy Interior Minister Tomislav Limov said in October U.S. intelligence information had helped uncover the suspected terrorists.
NO HARD EVIDENCE FROM U.S.?
But local media have reported that the United States has not actually provided hard evidence needed to charge the six and human rights activists have urged their release.
Bosnian media have speculated that the six might be detained by NATO immediately on their release and extradited to their home countries or to the United States.
Nadja Dizdarevic, wife of detained Algerian Boudella Hadz, said: ``If they have been extradited, and these people are innocent, it means that this is not a war against terrorism, this is a war against Islam.''
The Chamber for Human Rights, the internationally chaired top human rights body in Bosnia, said four of the suspects should remain in the country.
Lawyers said the panel had decided it could not issue the same order for the two others for various legal reasons.
The six were part of a community numbering hundreds of Arabs who either stayed in Bosnia after the 1992-95 war in which they fought as ``Mujahideen'' with Muslim-led government forces or came to the country after the conflict ended.
Many of them obtained Bosnian citizenship through marriages with Bosnians or for fighting against Serb and Croat forces and some worked with Islamic humanitarian agencies.
VRN
HumWarriors, the list of Al-Queeda terrorists harboured, trained, protected, paid by your Iztbegovic allies sure continues to grow.......don't you feel the slightest sense of remorse spending the last decade promoting Iztbegovic's extremist agenda in Bosnia ?
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