Catch and release strikes again! CNN reports:
Two former detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba were arrested by Belgian police in a counterterrorism operation targeting a recruiting network for al Qaeda in Syria.
They were arrested Wednesday night along with three others as they were about to break into a house to raise funds in the town of Hoboken, near Antwerp, a senior Belgian counterterrorism official told CNN.
“We have dismantled a serious recruiting network for Syria,” the official told CNN.
One of the former Guantanamo Bay detainees was Moussa Zemmouri, 37, a Moroccan national born in Antwerp, Belgian federal prosecutors announced Friday. The other was an Algerian identified as Soufiane A., who prosecutors believe spent time in Syria.
Both have been charged with participating in the activities of a terrorist group and all five have been charged with attempted armed robbery.
Moussa Zemmouri was released in April 2005 (under what looks like the name Mosa Zi Zemmori on this timeline) and later authored a book titled, “Innocent at Guantanamo”:
These arrests in Belgium come shortly after word of a plan to close Guantanamo before the end of President Obama’s term:
Obama Finishing Plan to Close Guantanamo | Ricochet https://t.co/yPDzPxvTWB
— jon gabriel (@exjon) July 22, 2015
Yeah, that sound like a great idea:
https://twitter.com/Nobody861/status/624714079211393024
I can't believe it… What were the odds of that #CaptainObvious https://t.co/S05dp5C5eW
— TJ Bethune (@tjigga01) July 24, 2015
Reassuring to know we let them go SMH https://t.co/wivQjhwjhN
— Jamison Uhler (@JamisonWFTS) July 24, 2015
Oops…guess they might have screwed up in release these guys. https://t.co/GMXilrlTQw
— SJY (@LilBit500) July 24, 2015
well that didn't take long lmao!!!! https://t.co/dEg8SBmd6k
— Tiarra Lowery (@tiarrabanks1) July 24, 2015
Hardly a Surprise… https://t.co/fgzb24D4KM
— John D. Gresham (@greshamj01) July 24, 2015
https://twitter.com/Civic_Thoughts/status/624674924557250560
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Related:
Not so fast: President’s ‘historic’ deal with Cuba doesn’t come without demands; Guantanamo Bay?
‘While you slept’: 5 more detainees released from Guantanamo
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