Reprieve Announces Release of Moroccan Prisoner
Said Al Boujaadia from Guantánamo Bay
02.05.2008
Reprieve, the legal action charity that represents 35 prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, announces that its client Moroccan prisoner Said Al Boujaadia has been released from Guantánamo Bay. He landed at approximately 11 PM Morocco time on May 1 at Kenitra. He is currently in custody of the security services.
Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s Director, said:
“Said Al Boujaadia and his family have waited for this day for many years – his long Guantánamo nightmare is over. Reprieve congratulates the Moroccan government for its work securing Mr. Al Boujaadia’s release from Guantánamo. We respectfully request that the Government of Morocco complete any investigation of Mr. Al Boujaadia quickly, so he may be swiftly reunited with his wife, his children and his elderly mother.”
He added:
“Although Reprieve is pleased that Mr. Al Boujaadia is back in his native land, we are deeply concerned that two other Moroccan prisoners – Younis Chekkouri and Abdullatif Nasser, who are both clients of Reprieve – remain in Guantánamo. They, like Mr. Al Boujaadia, have been held for more than six years by the United States without charge or trial. Reprieve urges the Moroccan government to continue to exert pressure on the US government on behalf of these sons of Morocco, to bring them home so they can have an opportunity for justice.”
Said Al Boujaadia’s story
A father of three, Mr. Al Boujaadia, who is 39 years old, is from Casablanca. He travelled to Afghanistan in 2001, with his Afghan wife and their three children. In the chaos that followed the US-led invasion in October 2001, he managed to secure the safe escape of his family, but was himself captured, as he attempted to help another family cross the Pakistani border to safety.
Mr. Al Boujaadia was cleared for release from Guantánamo in late 2006, when a military review board decided that he did not pose a threat to the United States or its allies – including Morocco. He was scheduled to leave Guantánamo in April 2007, but at the last minute the US military decided to keep him at the prison, because he had been requested as a witness at the trial by military commission of another prisoner, the Yemeni Salim Hamdan.
Although Mr. Hamdan’s lawyers offered alternatives that would have allowed Mr. Al Boujaadia to be released – included videotaping a statement, or allowing him to testify from Morocco – these options were all refused. It was not until December 6, 2007 that Mr. Al Boujaadia was finally called to testify, when he stated that he knew nothing about Mr. Hamdan, beyond the fact that they were seized in different places on the same day.
Five months later, and almost a year and a half after he was initially cleared for release, Mr. Al Boujaadia will finally have the opportunity to rejoin his family.
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For further information, please contact Andy Worthington at the Reprieve Press Office on +44 (0)20 7427 1099.
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