Mustafa Nasar was seized in Pakistan in 2005 and handed to US forces. He was then secretly flown to British Overseas Territory Diego Garcia and almost certainly held there. Since then he has completely disappeared.
Mr Naser was born in Aleppo, Syria on 27 October 1957. He fled Syria in the early 1980s after a challenge to the dictatorship failed. He arrived in Spain in 1985, and in 1988 married Helena, our client, in Madrid. Mr Naser subsequently became a Spanish citizen. Mr Naser and our client have four children.
Mr Naser wrote a number of books and other publications and was viewed as an influential theorist and intellectual in the Islamist movement. Mr Naser and his family moved to the UK in 1995.
He has been alleged to have been involved in various offences. He and his family have always denied involvement, and he has never been convicted of any of them.
In 1999, they moved to Afghanistan. From 2002 until his disappearance, Mr Naser lived in Pakistan. In late 2005, Helena and the children moved to Kuwait as the situation in Pakistan became dangerous. Mr Naser was to join them, but in October 2005 he disappeared.
Numerous media reports have stated that Mr Naser was arrested by the Pakistani authorities and subsequently handed over the US authorities. It has been reported that he was transferred to US naval custody in the Chagos Islands (Diego Garcia) in November 2005.
Attempts by NGOs, journalists and Spanish prosecutors to ascertain whether Mr Naser is in US control and/or his whereabouts have all been either ignored or met with a “neither confirm nor deny” response. What is known for certain is that the US Government removed Mr Naser from the FBI’s most wanted list and its “Rewards for Justice” list shortly after his reported detention.
Helena Moreno’s only wish is to find her husband and, if the allegations against him are maintained, that he is given a fair and open trial.
Evidence that Naser was held at Diego Garcia:
Reprieve has complied many witness sources to confirm this, including: two recently retired CIA members confirming the fact in private conversation; Judge Balthazar Garzon from Spain (who was investigating Mr Naser) confirming it to El-Pais newspaper; Spanish police and Syrian officials confirming it off the record. Syrians have said off the record that the Americans handed Mr Naser to them and now they have him. If this is true, Mr Naser was rendered to a state known for persecution in violation of the Convention Against Torture.
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