Danish Guantanamo prisoner drops case
Danish Guantanamo prisoner drops caseSlimane Hadj Abderrahmane, the Danish citizen arrested by US forces in Pakistan and detained on Guantanamo as an 'unlawful combatant', has decided to give up his lawsuit against the United States government. The statement did maintain that the imprisonment and the situation on Guantanamo were violations of international law. 'Slimane and I found that both the way he was treated and the actual judicial construction that placed the prisoners in a legal vacuum outside of the protection of the conventions violated international laws,' wrote Trier in a short statement. Trier has previously called the situation on Guantanamo 'an unsustainable judicial smorgasbord'. Abderrahmane made no comment himself regarding the decision to drop the case. However, in his last public statement, made at an anti-Bush demonstration during the president's visit to Copenhagen, he rejected Bush's claim that prisoners on Guantanamo are treated humanely. 'We were treated worse than animals,' Abderrahmane said to B.T. 'We were caged in two by two metre cells. There was also a bed there, so we really only had one square metre to move in.' Abderrahmane's move to take the US to court had been backed by the Rehabilitation and Research Centre for Torture Victims. The centre had also urged the government to back the lawsuit, but the government refused to do so. Minister of Justice Lene Espersen also said that Abderrahmane, who was never charged with a crime, could not demand compensation from the Danish state. Abderrahmane was released from Guantanamo in February 2004 after being held prisoner for 741 days. He was taken prisoner in 2001 by US military forces in Pakistan. According to Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller, he was captured during 'a combat situation in Afghanistan'. According to Abderrahmane's explanation, however, he had been in Afghanistan on his way to join the Chechen fight against Russian troops in Chechnya. After the US began attacking Afghanistan after the 11 September terror attacks, Abderrahmane slipped over the border into Pakistan, where he was taken prisoner.
Some older information about Abderrahmane:
Danish Muslim: Danish PM and Defense Minister legitimate terror targets
A Danish born former Guantanamo prisoner did not break the law when he told Danish media that Danish ministers and soldiers are legitimate terror targets. In an interview with the Danish Broadcasting Corporation, former prisoner Slimane Abderahmane identified both the Danish Prime Minister and the Defence Minister as legitimate terror targets for radical Islamic organisations. The Defence Minister said afterwards that he did not know whether these intolerable and offensive threats were illegal. Nonetheless, spokesmen from both the government and the opposition agreed with legal experts in saying that it would not be possible to press charges against Abederahmane on the basis of his statements. Abderahmane himself said later that he while did not intend to promote violence or terrorism, it had to be said that Denmark was at war with an Islamic nation and that made its leaders legitimate targets according to Islam.
Conservatives: Put Abderrahmane in jail
Former Guantanamo prisoner Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane announced yesterday that he has dropped plans to sue the US government and will quit Denmark for Chechnya to aid Muslim insurgents in the country. In response, Conservative Party justice spokesman Helge Adam Møller has urged authorities to jail Abderrahmane. "He's a terrorist," Helge Adam Møller told TV2 news. "He wants to go someplace where he can kill women and children." Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane told DR News Magazine on Wednesday evening that he had decided against suing the US government for his two-year detainment at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Although Abderrahmane signed an agreement with the US barring him from engaging in jihad ever again, the Danish-Algerian citizen is prepared to leave Denmark in favour of Chechnya. "Lots of Danes are ready to hang me - a million and a half want me jailed for life, and the rest want me deported," said Abderrahmane, who told DR that he was abandoning his lawsuit against the US government because he had no chance of winning. "Western democracy has no room for people who think differently. There's no room for me here in Denmark, so I'm going to war in Chechnya, where I can support Muslims and be of some use, " said Abderrahmane.
posted by Unknown @ 1:20 PM
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