Monday, June 8, 2009

Freed Gitmo Detainee Speaks of 7+ years

Lakhdar Boumediene is now a free man after 7 plus years at Guantanamo Bay military prison. In 2001, the Bosnian police arrested Boumediene on conspiring to bomb the U.S. Embassy. The Bosnian courts found him and five others innocnet and freed the men, but according to reports, with the urging of President Bush, he was turned over to the U.S. where he says he was shackled and transferred to GITMO. There, he alleges torture and never being interrogated. Standing by his claim of innocence, and now re-united with his wife and two daughters in France, Boumediene says he has no ill will to the U.S. and it's citizens other than George Bush, Dick Cheney and three other Bush Admin officials.

Saying he was deprived of sleep for 16 days at a time and alleging that guards used hypodermic needles and tubes to torture him after he declared a hunger strike. The problem the U.S facing while it plans to close Guantanamo, is giving the detainees due process, and sentencing or freeing them, and figuring out where to release them. Since the current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, of the 800 detainees, 420 have been released without charge, and reports claim that 61 have returned to or have now joined the battles. Many detainees have declared their innocence, others have admitted guilt, and some have said nothing. The issue we are facing amidst the accusations of torture and cherry picked intel, is that some of these boys and men are innocent.

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