Guantanamo prisoner freed without charges
01 January 2004
A Danish prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay has been released after having been imprisoned for 741 days at the US prison complex in Cuba. The Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Per Stig Møller, announced the release on Thursday 19 February during a debate in parliament. The minister explained that he had struck a deal with the US Foreign Secretary Colin Powell to have the Danish prisoner released.
In a press release the spokesman of the US State Department, Mr Richard Boucher, said, among other things:
[The] US has agreed to release the Danish citizen held in Guantanamo and hand him over to the Danish Government. The decision is taken on the basis of assurances from the Danish Government that it will take upon itself the responsibility for its citizen and take appropriate and necessary measures to make sure that he will not be a threat to the US or international society.
The agreement was result of the close relations between the USA and Denmark. Boucher said that "the Danish Government and people have shown itself as a courageous partner in the struggle against terror. Our cooperation in this case, as in so many others, is a proof of the close connection between our two countries".
According to press reports Mr Per Stig Møller informed a closed meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee, also on the 19 February the details of the agreement. It was revealed that it includes surveillance by the police intelligence service (PET) of the man's movements. The Minister of Justice, Ms Lene Espersen, told the news agency Ritzaus Bureau after the meeting:
In light of the circumstances regarding the released Dane it would be a surprise if he didn't attract considerable attention by the security service, PET. Initially, there will be reason for the PET to follow him very closely, but within the Danish law.
As part of the agreement the prisoner has agreed to inform the authorities about his whereabouts, and his travels in the future. It was emphasized that there are no limitation on his rights.
The release of the prisoner was based on the fact that the Danish found that the evidence in his case would not hold-up in court. This came as a surprise to the public and the opposition in the Danish parliament since only a few days before the American war crimes ambassador, Pierre-Richard Prosper, told the daily Politiken: "We know for sure, that he has connections to al-Quada", referring to his travel profile after leaving Denmark.
Hitherto, the Minister of foreign affairs had told the public that the man was caught during serious fighting in Afghanistan. But it seems that this information was wrong and that the man was neither caught during fighting nor in Afghanistan, but in Pakistan.
The Danish Government had accurate information about his arrest in Pakistan for more than a year, according to various newspaper reports. Until the announcement of the release the Minister of Foreign Affairs had presented different versions of the man's story, ranging from calling him a terrorist caught during fighting to being an unlucky tourist at an unlucky place at an unlucky time. According to a source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, whom the daily Information quotes, the minister deliberately failed to correct the picture he had drawn of the man so as not to give a wrong impression of what is going on at Guantanamo Bay: "The prisoners don't sit there so that the US can decide if they are guilty or not. They sit there because the US can get intelligence information from them and because the US does not want them back on the fighting field", the source said.
Criticism directed at the government has come from politicians, human rights experts and the Danish Red Cross. The general secretary of the Red Cross, Mr Jørgen Poulsen, said:
If he had been arrested in Jutland [a part of Denmark], Denmark would have protested very differently. No one would doubt that a foreign power had kidnapped a Danish cit