ALGIERS, June 7, 2012 (AFP)
A court in Algiers on Thursday acquitted two Algerians who were held for six years in the US military prison of Guantanamo of a charge of belonging to a terrorist group active abroad, their lawyer said.
“El Houari Abar, in his forties, and Ahmed El Abed, aged over 50, were released for lack of evidence,” their lawyer Hassiba Boumerdassi told AFP.
The two men had been turned over to the Algerian authorities in 2008 by the United States after their release from the prison on the island of Cuba, where they had been held without trial.
Abed had been arrested by the US army in Afghanistan and Abar was arrested in Georgia, Boumerdassi said. Between July 2008 and July 2010, 12 Algerians detained at Guantanamo were sent home.
In March 2008, Algerian authorities said they were ready to bring home 17 nationals who had been identified at the time and held in the US facility on charges of terrorism after the Al-Qaeda attacks on New York of September 11, 2001.
Six of them, accused of belonging to a terrorist group active abroad, have since been acquitted by an Algiers court.
