Swedish Guantanamo prisoner released

[A Swedish citizen who was held at the Guantanamo base has been released. The following is a rough translation of his history as published in the paper edition of Svenska Dagbladet 9 July 2004 - my comments in square brackets, ScaniaBoy]

• Ghezali received good grades during his first years in senior school (high school)

• His main interest was football and he told his friends he intended to move to Portugal or Spain to play soccer.

• During his last year in senior school [1999] he was absent a lot. Ghezali was prosecuted for larceny. He did not turn up for the trial when it was about to start in August. According to the court he was doing military service in Algeria. The case was dropped.

• The same summer - 30th July - Mehdi Ghezali was apprehended in Portugal suspected of grand larceny and fraud. He was arrested but the was later released.

• Spring 2000 the Portuguese authorities asked the district court (Sweden) to interrogate Ghezali. But this time also it was asserted that he was in Algeria doing military service. The case was dropped.

• The same summer [spring?] Ghezali travelled to Saudi Arabia to study Islam. He wanted to become an imam but was never able to enter the university.

• In June he travelled to London to continue [start?] his studies. The last contact between Ghezali and his family took place at this time.

• The bombing of Afghanistan started in October 2001. • 18 December 2001 Mehdi Ghezali was arrested in Pakistan [where?] suspected of collaborating with al-Qaeda.

• Some time later [a few days according to SvD] Ghezali and hundreds of other prisoners where taken to the base at Guantanamo on Cuba.

• In February 2002 representatives from the Swedish Embassy in Washington DC met with Ghezali for the first time.

• In March 2002 Ghezali was pointed out as one of the prisoners involved in a prison riot in Pakistan. 17 people had been killed including 7 guards. [This should not be confused with the uprising in Mazar-i-Sharif which took place about the same time (26 November 2001 but it may have been this incident:

• In December 2002 the Pakistani authorities dropped the investigation on the prison riot including the accusation of murder against Mhedi Ghezali.

The 8 July 2004 - after more than 900 days as prisoner on Cuba - Ghezali is freed.

This man must surely be one unlucky fellow: During his young innocent life he been accused of grave crimes at least four times, and three times ended up in jail.

Or maybe he is not so innocent...

We know for a fact that he was not doing military service in Algeria when he was arraigned for theft in Sweden - instead he had been arrested in Portugal for grand larceny. For those who are fluent in Portuguese (or can find a good net-translator, I couldn't) here is what is said about him on a Portuguese blogg-site:

http://jovemnr.blogspot.com/2004_05_01_jovemnr_archive.html

Em todos os países da Europa há células da internacional islâmica, embora algumas estejam adormecidas e outras não sejam operacionais de acções de terror, mas de recolha de informações, recrutamento e “angariação” de fundos. Os ataques contra os EUA foram planeados e levados a cabo por membros da Al-Qaida na Europa. E mesmo em Portugal há pelo menos uma célula da Al-Qaida: Mehdi Ghezali, cidadão sueco, é até agora o elo visível dessa célula, encontrando-se agora prisioneiro na base de Guantanamo, em Cuba. Da sua passagem por Portugal ficam os registos de acções de recolha de fundos (assaltos que renderam uns milhares de contos) e de falsificação de documentos.

So, during his passage through Portugal he was involved in robbery and forging of identity documents according to this blogg.

One should also note that Algerian government (military dictatorship) has battled against Islamic insurgents for the last 10 years. Military service in Algeria definitely means action - and given that Ghezali was a Swedish citizen at the time (and I’m pretty sure that at that time Swedish citizens could not have a double citizenship - this has been changed now) it would have been very strange for him to volunteer for service in Algeria.

Finally one must ask oneself how Ghezali managed to earn enough to travel to Saudi Arabia, London and Pakistan and support himself during those 1 1/2 years he was abroad.

It is a question that apparently will not be asked by any Swedish authorities. The Swedish Foreign Minister, Ms Freivalds (even more stupid than her predecessor if you can believe it), has told the press that Swedish authorities have no interest in Ghezali, and he is now a free man. She says this despite the fact that according to US sources Sweden has promised to ensure that this man will no longer be a threat to the USA or her allies. One may argue that it is not possible for a nation under the rule of law to ensure any particular action of a free citizen. However, one would have expected the Swedish authorities at least to interrogate mr Gehzhali about his activities prior to his arrest by Pakistani forces.

Quite obviously Sweden does not belong to the Coallition against Terrorism.

The whole thing reminds me so much of the late 70s early 80s. Terrorism was rampant in the Middle East and Europe.

A lot of circumstantial evidence pointed towards the Eastern block together with Cuba and Libya as financier and organizers of the terror. Of course there were no (or very few) evidence that could have stood in court, and of course it was denied by our left-wing main-stream media (and then we didn't have the net).

Then the wall fell, and the real evidence started to come in - from Moscow, East Berlin, Prague etc - but of course then the media was no longer interested - yesterday's news.

But if you are not interested to learn from history you are bound to make the same mistakes over and over again.

Luckily, we had some leaders then who knew what was right and were prepared to fight for the truth, and today once again, we have to turn to the English speaking countries to find those leaders.

May President Bush prevail in the upcoming election.

ScaniaBoy

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