Gitmo Prisoner Fights His Own Release

Algerian prefers detention to torture as terrorist—or by terrorists—at home
By Dustin Lushing,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 31, 2007 6:21 AM CDT
Gitmo Prisoner Fights His Own Release
(FILES) In this 06 December 2006 file photo, a detainee is escorted...   (Getty Images)

A detainee at Guantanamo Bay is doing everything he can in court—to stay in prison. Algerian Ahmed Belbacha, 38, is contesting his imminent release from the notorious detention camp because he fears he'll be tortured by Algerian security agents as a  suspected terrorist—or killed by Islamic terrorists for being a former state worker, reports the Times.

Belbacha, who spends 22 hours a day in a windowless isolation cell, filed an emergency motion with the US Court of Appeals asking that his release be blocked. He was an accountant for a state-owned oil company when he fled Algeria in 1999. He lived in Britain, and Pakistan, where he claims villagers sold him to authorities, in 2001, for a bounty. The US has determined he poses no threat. (More Guantanamo Bay stories.)

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