Pentagon releases transcripts of Gitmo inmate proceedings

The Pentagon voluntarily released 2,600 more pages of documents from proceedings against prisoners at Guan-tanamo Bay, Cuba, giving up a four year fight to keep their names secret.

The documents, which were posted on a Pentagon Web site, included transcripts and defense summaries from special military panels that review each prisoner case once a year and determine if he is eligible for release or transfer.

Among them were the cases of six Algerians who were seized in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2002 and flown to Guantanamo after the Bosnian Supreme Court dismissed charges against them of plotting to blow up the US Embassy in Sarajevo.

The so-called "Bosnian Six" are unusual in that they were seized in Europe, far from Afghanistan, unlike most of the 490 "war-on-terror" detainees held at Guantanamo.

One of the six, Belkacem Bensayah, refused to appear before the review board to respond to allegations that he screened potential al-Qaeda recruits for Abu Zubaydah, a top aide to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The government claims in the documents that Bensayah had Abu Zubaydah's cell phone number and made 70 calls to Afghanistan from Sept. 11, 2001, up until his capture in October 2001.

The other five -- Saber Lahmar, Mohamed Nechla, Mustafa Ait Idir, Lakhdar Boumediene and Al Hadj Boudella -- appeared to be held mainly because of allegations they knew Bensayah.

They also were alleged to be members of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), which the US lists as an Algerian terrorist group.

In testimony, they expressed surprise over the allegations against them, and told their interrogators they had no apparent interest in the alleged embassy bomb plot.

"I've been here for three years and these accusations were just told to me," Boudella said. "Nobody or any interrogator ever mentioned any of these accusations you are talking about now."

The six left Algeria in the late 1980s or early 1990s, winding up in Bosnia where most of them married Bosnian women and worked for various Muslim charity organizations, according to briefs presented by defense lawyers.

But three of the six said they never knew Bensayah, the alleged cell leader, before they were shipped off to Guantanamo.

"I ask and challenge you to find one person or something that proves I had a relationship or anything close to a relationship with a man from al-Qaeda," Lahmar told the review panel.

"You can look in Bosnia, the Earth and the moon. If you find a man on the moon from al-Qaeda, tell me," he said.

Defense lawyers also claimed in their filings that Lahmar's embittered former brother-in-law, Ali El Hamad, who is serving a prison term, had linked the Algerians to the GIA to barter his way out of prison.