PARIS – A Paris appeals court on Tuesday overturned five men's terror convictions, ruling that French intelligence officials improperly questioned them while they were detained at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay.
The court ruled that procedures required under French law had not been respected, making the charges baseless. Members of France's DST counterintelligence service interrogated the men at Guantanamo in 2002 and 2004.
Lawyers for the men — Brahim Yadel, Khaled ben Mustafa, Nizar Sassi, Mourad Benchellali and Ridouane Khalid — hailed the decision.
The court refused "to let it be said that a police agency could question people detained on foreign territory in conditions that go against international conventions," said Khalid's attorney, Paul-Albert Iwens.
He said the court had ruled that an agency could not be both a spy agency and a judicial police service — the body that under French law is authorized to interrogate detainees.
Arrested in Afghanistan in 2001, the men spent at least two years in U.S. custody at Guantanamo. After they were returned to France, a Paris criminal court in 2007 convicted them of "criminal association with a terrorist enterprise," a broad charge often used in terror cases.
They were give three- and four-year suspended sentences and were each sentenced to one year in prison. But because they had served the time before the trial, they did not return to prison following the sentencing.
During their 2007 Paris trial, the five acknowledged having spent time in military training camps in Afghanistan but they said they had never put their combat skills to use.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090224/ap_on_re_eu/eu_france_guantanamo_acquittal
Topic: Paris appeals court acquits ex-Guantanamo inmates (Read 508 times)