Ahcene Zemiri
Ahcene Zemiri is an Algerian who currently held in Guantanamo Bay as a suspected member of al Queda.
Zemiri arrived in Canada in 1994, where he applied for refugee status. His application was rejected on National Security grounds in 1996. Nevertheless, he married a Canadian woman, Karina Dereshteanu. After his refugee claim was turned down Zemiri should have been deported, but he and Dereshteanu lived in Canada until July 2001, when they moved to Afghanistan.
Dereshteanu, was able to flee Afghanistan in November 2001, around the time of invasion. Zemiri was captured.
Dereshteanu filed an affadavit with a US court where she attested that, to the best of her knowledge, her husband had no ties to terrorism. She reports that bounty hunters sold her husband to United States forces of $5,000 USD.
The Ottawa Citizen obtained a copy of Zemiri's Combatant Status Review. Zemiri, like approximately half of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay declined to agree to the conditions which would have permitted him to attend his review hearing. So it was held without him.
The tribunal cited his friendship with Ahmed Ressam, and said that Zemiri loaned Ressam $3,500 and some camera equipment, which Ressam used to help him conduct his foiled Millenium bomb plot. Ressam, like Zemiri, was an Algerian expatriate, who lived in Montreal.
A sidebar to the Ottawa Citizen story contains a summary of the report of the American tribunal:
Why Zemiri is held at Guantanamo
Former Montreal resident Ahcene Zemiri has been held as an "enemy combatant" at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 2001. U.S. court documents reveal their allegations against him, none of which have been proven in court:
- Zemiri travelled to Afghanistan with a stolen passport.
- That passport was in the possession of an Al-Qa'ida facilitator.
- The detainee travelled to Canada on a false French passport.
- He carried a weapon in Afghanistan.
- The detainee was an active member of a network supporting subversion in Algeria, and planned to take part in jihad there.
- He knew Algerian Al-Qa'ida members in Kabul, Afghanistan.
- The detainee associated with Islamic extremists, and at least three persons whom he considered terrorists.
- The detainee is a personal friend of Ahmed Ressam, arrested at the U.S.-Canada border en route to a terrorist attack in the United States.
- He provided financing and equipment to Ressam.