Former US intelligence agent Edward Snowden published several documents this week which reveal different details about the work of intelligence agencies in the USA, including details about the deportation of the so-called Algerian Six from BiH to Guantanamo.
“The SIDTODAY Files” are various internal documents of the National Security Agency (NSA), and Snowden published nearly 160 documents this week.
SIDTODAY is a portal or network used by the NSA employees, where they presented different reports, observations and travelogues. The published documents contain information that can be classified from bizarre (quality of cuisine in certain countries) to documents which reveal important details about the work of the NSA.
One of the published documents speaks about the deportation of the Algerian Six from Sarajevo to Guantanamo and this is the only operation of deportation to Guantanamo in which the US Army participated.
On 18th of January 2002, the Algerian Six (Mustafa Ait Idir, Hadz Boudella, Lakhdar Boumediene, Saber Lahmar, Mohammed Nechle i Bensayah Belkacem) was deported to Guantanamo. After that, they were never tried and all of them were released after perennial stay in prison.
SIDTODAY, document which describes their deportation, is a part of a more verbose text which speaks about anecdotes of the US intelligence agents and their strenuous and overtime work.
The agent who is the author of the report came to Tuzla in late 2001 as a member of NSA and the former SFOR.
The unnamed agent describes that the Algerian Six was detained by the BiH authorities earlier that year, after the indications that they might perform an attack on the Embassy of the USA in Sarajevo. However, due to lack of evidence the Constitutional Court of BiH orders their release, a decision which the US authorities considered intolerable. The agent states that the Algerian Six was released out of BiH prison because the majority of evidence against them originated from the US intelligence sources which were not made available for the BiH judiciary.
After their release from prison, the SFOR takes over the Algerian Six and transfers them from Sarajevo to Tuzla, and the NSA agent who wrote the report was in charge of preventing the possible attack on the convoy that was on the road to Tuzla. The Six was transferred from Tuzla to Turkey, and then from Turkey to Guantanamo.
“My usual day started at 5:30 a.m. with preparations for the morning collegium at 6:30 a.m. the prisoners were supposed to be released in the afternoon, but it was being delayed due to protests in front of the building where they were accommodated. Eventually, convoy with prisoners departed from Sarajevo around midnight and it took the alternative road for security reasons. The journey took about eight hours. I was on duty until 10 a.m., and then I could finally go back to bed,” it is written in the report, with a note that members of the Algerian Six are now “guests of the USA Government in Guantanamo”.
The report published by Snowden was made in 2008 and only several months later the US authorities admitted that members of the Algerian group were detained without valid reasons. Five of them were released from prison in 2009 and the last one was released in 2013.
Investigation was conducted in BiH about their unlawful extradition, but no indictment has ever been issued against any official.
(Source: klix.ba/photo balkans.aljazeera.net)
