IRAQ:A KUWAITI man who complained about maltreatment during a three-year stay in the US detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was involved in a deadly suicide bombing in Iraq last month, the US military has reported.
Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi (29), whom the US military accused of fighting with the Taliban in Afghanistan, was involved in one of three suicide bombings that killed seven Iraqi security forces in Mosul on April 26th, US defence department officials said on Wednesday.
They said that after his release in Kuwait, Ajmi travelled to Iraq via Syria. Military officials said Ajmi's motives were unclear, but in a lengthy martyrdom audio recording before his death, Ajmi implores people to take part in suicide bombings to attack Americans.
In portions of the recording Ajmi decries the conditions at Guantánamo as "deplorable" and urges others to fight.
The suicide bombing is the first such attack in Iraq linked to a former Guantánamo detainee, though the Defense Intelligence Agency has estimated that as many as three dozen former Guantánamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of having returned to terrorist activities.
International human rights groups and lawyers for Guantánamo detainees have disputed that estimate, saying only a handful of former detainees have left US custody and gone on to fight US forces.
Approximately 500 detainees have been released from Guantánamo or transferred to other governments since the facility opened in January 2002. Of the 270 who remain, about 65 more detainees have been cleared for release or transfer.
Ajmi was held in Guantánamo until late 2005, when he was transferred to the custody of the Kuwaiti government as part of a diplomatic arrangement. At hearings in Guantánamo, Ajmi maintained his innocence and said he never fought with the Taliban or meant anyone any harm.
Thomas Wilner, a Washington lawyer who represented Ajmi in seeking a habeas corpus hearing during his stay at Guantánamo, said on Wednesday that Ajmi was young and not well educated and that he appeared deeply affected by his incarceration at the US facility.
Ajmi told Wilner in five 2005 meetings that he had been badly abused after his capture in Afghanistan and later in Guantánamo, at one point coming to a meeting with a broken arm Ajmi said he sustained in a scuffle with guards.
Wilner said that over the course of the visits, Ajmi became "more and more distraught . . . about the way he was treated and the fact that he couldn't do anything about it." Wilner called the suicide bombing a "horrible tragedy" and a result of the absence of appropriate legal processes at Guantánamo.