Yahoo News
By Aziz El Yaakoubi
A Moroccan man who spent 13 years in Guantanamo Bay and then almost five months in detention after he was sent home, was released on bail on Thursday, his lawyer said.
U.S. authorities freed Younes Abdurrahman Chekkouri from their naval base in Cuba without charge in September.
But he was detained as soon as he landed back in Morocco, on charges, his family and lawyer said, of conspiring against national security.
“The judge accepted our request of granting him freedom until the end of the investigation,” lawyer Khalil Al-Idrissi said.
Moroccan authorities have confirmed his detention but not commented on the charges or other details of the case.
A leaked 2008 U.S. Defense Department document posted online by the anti-censorship group WikiLeaks said Chekkouri was captured by Pakistani forces in December 2001, transferred to U.S. custody in January 2002 and sent to the Guantanamo facility in May 2002.
The U.S. administration is drafting a plan that would close the Guantanamo detention facility for foreign terrorism suspects, a priority for President Barack Obama since the beginning of his presidency, by transferring the prisoners to other countries or to prisons in the United States.
(Reporting By Aziz El Yaakoubi; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
