February 25, 2009
Good News!! French Court Frees Former GITMO Detainees
They now will be able to return to work. Great, just great:
PARIS -- Five French former inmates of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp who had been convicted of criminal conspiracy linked to terrorism after returning to France were freed on Tuesday by an appeals court.The torture plea is getting damn old and unfortunately it's working.The court in Paris released the men on grounds the ruling was based on evidence illegally extracted by French security agents at the U.S. prison, a symbol of detainee abuse which U.S. President Barack Obama plans to shut down.
The court disqualified the evidence, saying French agents for security service DST could not simultaneously gather intelligence and conduct criminal investigations.
"We could not accept that [the interrogators] would question people imprisoned in a foreign territory, in conditions contrary to international conventions," Paul-Albert Iweins, the lawyer for one of the men, told Reuters.
The five -- Khaled ben Mustapha, Mourad Benchellali, Nizar Sassi, Redouane Khalid and Brahim Yadel -- said they were tortured during their stay at Guantanamo, where they each were held for one and a half to two years.
Hopey/Changey hasn't helped with this situation by declaring closure of GITMO to improve America's image. After his own team declared GITMO follows the Geneva Convention he still plans to close it.
