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France court reverses terrorism convictions of former Guantanamo detainees

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] A Paris appeals court on Tuesday overturned the 2007 terrorism convictions of five French citizens who had been questioned by French officials while detained at Guantanamo Bay. The court held that counter-terrorism agents from the French national security service DST could not gather intelligence and conduct a criminal investigation at the same time. The defendants, Brahim Yadel, Mourad Benchellali, Nizar Sassi, Khaled ben Mustapha and Redouane Khalid, had been convicted of "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise" and sentenced to one year in prison. Prosecutors plan to appeal the ruling to France's Court of Cassation. The court's ruling had been postponed in January, after US President Barack Obama ordered the closure of the Guantanamo detention center. France charged the defendants in April 2006, and during their original September 2006 trial, the judge refused to deliver a verdict, explaining that he wanted to know more about the intelligence-gathering mission in which agents interviewed the men at Guantanamo. The French government at first failed to disclose the meetings, which came to light during the retrial when a French diplomatic telegram published in the Liberation daily referred to at least two such interviews.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on February 25, 2009 (boomark / email).