al-Qaida GITMO

OBAMA TRANSFERS AL QAIDA EXPLOSIVE EXPERTS FROM GITMO TO ……SENEGAL

Look at these two….no longer a threat?

obama winking

Two Al Qaeda explosives experts are transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Senegal after Obama administration determines they are ‘no longer a threat’

  • Salem Abdu Salam Ghereby, 55, and Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour, 44, were both members of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group
  • With the release of the two Libyans, there are 89 men left, including 35 cleared for release who are expected to be gone within months 
  • Their departure comes amid an effort by President Barack Obama to release Guantanamo prisoners  and close the detention center 
  • Mahjour had been held on suspicion of helping re-establish Al-Qaeda camps following their destruction by US bombings in 1998
  • Ghereby’s file states he had attended multiple training camps and received explosives training from a senior Al-Qaeda explosives expert

Senegal has agreed to take in two Libyans who spent nearly 14 years in custody at the U.S. base in Cuba without charge, becoming the second country in West Africa to accept former detainees, officials said Monday.

Salem Abdu Salam Ghereby, 55, and Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour Umar, who records show is about 44, were both members of the Libya Islamic Fighting Group, an organization that sought the ouster of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and had been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. since 2004.

Mahjour Umar had been held on suspicion of helping re-establish Al-Qaeda camps following their destruction by US bombings in 1998, and was identified as an explosives and weapons trainer, according to his leaked file.

Salem Abdu Salam Ghereby
Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour Umar

Transferred: Salem Abdu Salam Ghereby (left), 55, and Omar Khalif Mohammed Abu Baker Mahjour Umar, 44, who spent nearly 14 years in custody at Guantanamo Bay (file photo of the U.S. base is pictured above) in Cuba without charge have been transferred to Senegal

Ghereby’s file states he had attended multiple training camps and received explosives training from a senior Al-Qaeda explosives expert. Neither man was ever charged.

Khalif’s lawyer, Ramzi Kassem, said his client is looking forward to ‘receiving proper medical care’ as he is missing his right leg below the knee after stepping on a land mine in Afghanistan in 1998. He is also blind in one eye, and has shrapnel in his leg and arm.

‘This is a bittersweet moment. I’m unsure why a half-blind, one-legged man with only one fully-functioning arm, and whose only supposed crime was to object to the Gadhafi dictatorship in his native Libya, was not freed years ago,’ said Kassem, a professor at City University of New York School of Law.

Ghereby had dropped a legal challenge to his detention after he was cleared for transfer from Guantanamo by U.S. authorities in 2010.

He is hoping that his wife and three children, including a daughter born after he was taken into custody, will be able to join him in Senegal, according to his lawyer, Richard Wilson, a retired law professor from American University in Washington.

‘He was thrilled when he heard that Senegal was receptive to family reunification,’ Wilson said.

Their departure comes amid an effort by President Barack Obama to release Guantanamo prisoners who are no longer deemed a threat and to eventually close the detention center, a prospect that faces strong opposition in U.S. Congress.

More here.

One Response

  1. Should have sent them out for deprogramming… Frontal lobotomy for sure.

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