The Algerian Six were six Algerian men, who gained citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War, five of whom will continue to hold a dual Algerian and Bosnian citizenship, and who were imprisoned without charges at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002.
After the men initially fell under U.S. suspicion, the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina arrested and tried them in 2001, but later released them for lack of evidence. Following these proceedings they were illegally turned over to US intelligence officials in January 2002 in Sarajevo and transported to Guantanamo, where they were detained there without charges by the US for the following years. The Bosnian authorities were formally condemned for their actions by the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina, the relevant Bosnian court at the time.[1]
They later filed for habeas corpus in United States federal court and their case reached the United States Supreme Court in 2008. It ruled in Boumediene v. Bush that detainees and foreign nationals had rights to file for habeas corpus in federal courts. Following review of their cases, a US District Court judge ordered five of the men to be released based on insufficient evidence.
In 2009, the US released the men. Three were flown to Bosnia to reunite with their families under protective custody. The US refused to let Lakhdar Boumediene return to Bosnia while he feared returning to Algeria because of potential retaliation, so Republic of France offered to let him settle in Provence, where he was joined by his wife and children.
District judge Richard J. Leon recommended the continued detention of Bensayah Belkacem, but his attorneys appealed his case and in 2010, a three-judge panel of the United States court of appeals overturned Leon's decision. They determined that Belkacem was not a member of al Qaeda and should be released.
In late 2004, the six men had been sent before Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) of three United States military officers. The CSRTs concluded that each of the six men was properly classified as an "enemy combatant" based on classified evidence. The CSRTs were criticized for applying a definition of "enemy combatant" that was so broad that it could include a "little old lady in Switzerland," who donated money to a charity in Afghanistan that, without her knowledge, funded al Qaeda.[2]
Wolfgang Petritsch, a UN diplomat and the former High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, said the US had threatened the UN to withdraw their men from the mission in 2002 if he protested against the transfer of the six men out of Bosnia at that time.[3]
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on February 6, 2012. Retrieved November 24, 2006.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ Clive Stafford Smith (April 21, 2007). "Have you received your gift pack?". The Guardian. Archived from the original on December 11, 2019. Retrieved April 22, 2007.
- ^ Perelman, Marc (November 27, 2007). "Sarajevo-Guantanamo: témoins à charge contre Washington" (in French). Rue 89. Archived from the original on February 8, 2012. Retrieved November 27, 2007.