The Algerian Group standoff

A US court is set to rule on the release from Guantanamo of six Algerians arrested in Bosnia in a case that illustrates the ambiguities of the war on terror, Anes Alic and Damir Kaletovic report for ISN Security Watch.

The hearing for six Algerians arrested in Bosnia and Herzegovina and being held at Guantanamo Bay since early 2002 began on 5 November, but few believe that the civilian court will find the evidence against them enough to external pagemake terrorism charges stick.

Documents obtained by ISN Security Watch from the defense team for what has become known as the "Algerian Group" and Bosnian and US intelligence agencies show that the handing over of the six to US troops in Bosnia and their transfer to Guantanamo did not follow procedure, and that Bosnian officials were pressured, and possibly even blackmailed, into doing so by the US Embassy in Sarajevo. 

US Justice Department lawyers and the defense team presented their arguments at a federal courthouse in Washington while the six detainees followed the trial via telephone link from Guantanamo. The court will hold several sessions with a ruling as soon as late November.

Bensayah Belkacem, Boudella el Hajj, Lakhdar Boumediene, Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar, Mustafa Ait Idr and Mohammad Nechle were formally arrested by Bosnian authorities in October 2001 in the Bosnian cities of Sarajevo, Zenica and Bihac.

All six had worked for Islamic charity branches in Bosnia headquartered in Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom. After the war, they married Bosnian women and gained citizenship.

They were held in Bosnian custody during a three-month investigation into US claims that the men had plotted an attack on the US and UK embassies, causing their temporary closure.

This investigation produced no evidence to justify their continued detention and the six men were then ordered released by the Bosnian Supreme Court, at the recommendation of the prosecutor. However, just hours before their release in January 2002, the six were handed over to the US Army base in Bosnia and deported to Guantanamo Bay.

Changing charges

Primarily, the six Algerians were suspected of plotting to bomb the US and UK embassies in Sarajevo, but those charges were dropped in October this year after US security agencies and intelligence officials found the accusations unreliable.

Instead, the US administration now claims that the six had planned to travel to al-Qaida camps in Afghanistan to take up arms against US forces there. The administration also maintains that the men are dangerous enemy combatants affiliated with an Algerian militant outfit, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), and that one of them consulted with an al-Qaida operative in Afghanistan, Abu Zubaydah.

However, defense lawyers say there is no evidence the men were headed to Afghanistan or planning to fight US and allied troops, and claim that Abu Zubaydah's contact information, which was found on a piece of paper in Belkacem's apartment, was planted and that the telephone number listed was not operational.

The six have been held at Guantanamo Bay since early 2002 without any legal recourse until the US Supreme Court in June ruled that they had the right to challenge their detention in civilian court. It is the first such case since the Supreme Court's decision, and could be the precedent for some 250 detainees to challenge their detention.

Unlike other Guantanamo detainees, the case of the Algerians is unique in that the six were not captured in combat in Afghanistan, nor has it been proved that they have at any time fought in Afghanistan.

In late 2004, they were sent before Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs), which concluded that the six had been properly deemed "enemy combatants," allowing for their detention without charges for the duration of a war. However, much of the opening hearing passed in debate over whether the six could indeed be labeled as enemy combatants. 

"They were not found lurking in some dark basement or backyard garage, making bombs. They were not found with any weapons or explosives or any other instruments of war," Stephen Oleskey, a lawyer representing the Algerians, said in his opening statement.

"The United States almost admitted they made a mistake with these people. Now, when there are no claims that they were preparing a bomb attack, the US administration is saying that they planed to travel to Afghanistan together, even though some of them never met before the arrest. But we know that these are false accusations and that the US government has no evidence to support the allegations," defense lawyer Robert Kirsch told ISN Security Watch.

Extradition ambiguities

Though the trial of the six is held under closed sessions and with sealed documents, ISN Security Watch obtained classified documents presented by the defense attorneys, containing more than 150 statements given by Bosnian and US politicians and intelligence officials and the members of the international community in Bosnia.

Since prosecution dropped the main charge against the six, the plot to attack the US Embassy in Sarajevo – the primary reason behind the US demand that the six be handed over and transferred to Guantanamo – the defense team argues that the extradition request was illegitimate.

According to the documents obtained by ISN Security Watch, the defense team will try to prove that US authorities had no evidence against their clients to warrant their extradition, and that their handing over occurred after pressure and blackmail, particularly from Christopher Hoh of the US Embassy, who allegedly threatened to withdraw US financial and military support from Bosnia.

According to testimony given by then-Bosnian Federation prime minister, Alija Behmen, Hoh said that if he did not hand over the men to the US troops, "then let God protect Bosnia and Herzegovina."

Behmen said that after talking with US Embassy officials in Sarajevo, it was clear that "we faced with the choice of either jeopardizing the very existence of our country, but risking a confrontation with international Stabilization Forces (SFOR), being branded as supporters of terrorism and losing financial and political support from the US."

Behmen was informed by the US administration that if the Bosnian court acquitted and released the Algerians, "US troops would seize them, using whatever force is necessary."

These allegations were confirmed by former Bosnian prime minister Zlatko Lagumdzija and former high representative of the international community in Bosnia, Austrian diplomat Wolfgang Petritsch.

According to the defense documents, Petritsch said that the US threat to withdraw from the Bosnian peace process would have endangered the country's stability. Without US support, the Bosnian government would lose legitimacy and the removal of US personnel from SFOR would have imperiled the group's ability to maintain order.

"It is my considered opinion that if the US threat would be carried out, the Bosnian peace process would have been seriously jeopardized with likely renewed civil strife as a consequence [...] to my knowledge the US never provided any evidence that could have justified the arrest of the six and their removal from Bosnia," Petritsch said in a September 2008 statement to the defense team.

Among those who gave their statements were also security experts and former CIA officials.

Several of the experts said that after the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington and the launch of war on terror, US foreign policy became unprincipled and ruthless while collecting intelligence information was arbitrary and unselective.

Arthur M Brown, who held several CIA positions, including Asian Pacific operations director and adviser to President George W Bush, testified that the 9/11 attacks led the CIA to accept all raw information it received, regardless of reliability or quality.

"As a result, the intelligence tolerated and encouraged the distribution of unreliable, unverified, faulty and even erroneous intelligence reports [...] CIA leadership in 2001 made the decision to encourage that all collected information, even if unsubstantiated, be disseminated through intelligence reports. The result of the poor quality control over intelligence reporting and the proliferation of unsubstantiated intelligence reports was that the intelligence system was flooded with unreliable reports," said Brown, who retired in 2005.

Several others intelligence officials and security experts agreed with Brown regarding reliability of the intelligence reports at that time, not only from the CIA but also from other US security agencies, regarding the accusations that Algerian Group had been plotting an attack on the US Embassy. 

Homecoming possibilities

At the same time, US media speculate that US President-elect Barack Obama could close down the Guantanamo detention center and that his advisers have already begun developing plans to that end. Reports have suggested that some prisoners could be released, some transferred to the countries in which they were arrested and others tried in US civilian and military courts.

Meanwhile, only days ahead of the start of the trial of the Algerian Group, John Clint Williamson, US ambassador for war crimes issues, visited Bosnia to negotiate the possibility that the country would accepts the six on its territory should they be acquitted and released.

According to an ISN Security Watch source inside the Bosnian Parliament, Williamson's visit created panic among the ruling nationalist parties. Williamson's visit was followed by a statement by the US Embassy in Sarajevo saying that Washington was holding talks with certain governments, including Bosnia, regarding the release of Guantanamo detainees.

A year and half ago, the Bosnian state parliament passed a draft proposal on how to deal with returnees from Guantanamo Bay, but the proposal has not been approved for implementation.

The main points of the proposal state that local authorities must guarantee that returned detainees do not present a external pagepotential threat to Bosnia or the US.

However, according to ISN Security Watch's parliamentary source, the government cannot make such guarantees with any certainty, especially with regard to the Algerian Group. The source pointed out that even if those sent to Guantanamo Bay did not initially represent a real threat, years of detention in the prison could very well have changed that. "If they were not a threat then, they could surely be now," the source said.

Of the six arrested, five had Bosnian passports while one had a Bosnian residence permit. Further inquiry showed that their Bosnian citizenships had been granted to them based on falsified information. As such, Bosnian authorities moved to revoke their citizenships in January 2002.

ISN Security Watch's government source said that after Williamson's visit, the government has begun to make preparations for a back-up plan should the Algerian six be deported back to Bosnia.

"After landing at the Sarajevo International Airport, the six would be moved to the extradition center or even immediately be deported to the Croatian capital Zagreb, since that was the transit country they arrived from to Bosnia during the war, just as many others foreign fighters," the source said. 

As such, even if the US court acquits and releases the Algerian Group and a legal path is eventually made for them to return to their point of arrest, it will be no easy homecoming.

According to a 7 November Associated Press report, external pageFederal Judge Richard J Leon, "who was appointed to the bench by President Bush, said he expects to decide this month whether to release the Algerians."

JavaScript has been disabled in your browser