Swedish in Guantamano... now Pakistan
Remember Mehdi Ghezali, the ”Cuba Swede” who was incarcerated at Guantanamo? He was there between January 02 and July 04, whereupon he was released and sent back home to Sweden where his father had campaigned for him—quite often dressed in a blue and yellow Swedish flag.
When Mehdi came home to Örebro, he was more or less treated as a hero. He had been, it was said, tortured by the beastly Americans (possible, but not proven). He was totally innocent of, well, anything (unlikely, based on the evidence). He was, in fact, a fairly normal young man, born to a Finnish mother and an Algerian father, brought up in Sweden and holding dual citizenship (which is quite alright), and trained as a welder (although he never really worked). The “Cuba Swede” today is 30 years old.
It must be said that he is either quite an accomplished criminal or a person with an almost unbelievable ability to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, habitually suspected of crime, but always down on his feet. Consider:
Early on, the police suspected the young man of having stolen jewels and other stuff in Karlskoga (of Bofors cannon fame). When the police came to his home, they were met by the father, who explained that Mehdi was not available as he was doing his military service—in Algeria. The claim has not been substantiated (although it would have been possible).
Next, Ghezali spent a year in prison in Portugal, arrested on the suspicion of burglary of stores and robbery of tourists. He was released without trial and promptly went to Saudi Arabia to visit the holy places in Mecca and Medina and study at an Islamic university. The latter proved impossible—he was not admitted—so he went to London by way of Stockholm. In London, it seems, he studied briefly (if at all) for Sheik Omar Bakri, a well known Islamic fanatic. He then went on to Pakistan to try to enter one of the madrassas that teach Islamic fundamentals ... and Jihad, holy war against infidels like you or me.
By the way, nobody on the outside has an inkling how the young man found money to pay for his globe hopping. And Ghezali does not tell, in spite of the fact that many news organizations have asked.
On the 8th of December 2004 he was caught in Pakistan after a group of prisoners he belonged in had attacked the guards in a bus they were traveling with. Ten of the prisoners were killed and so were 7 guards. Ghezali was, for reasons unknown, sent to the U.S. as a suspect al-Qaida supporter. He stayed at Guantanamo for 930 days, after which he was proclaimed “no longer a threat to the U.S.” and let free to go to Sweden.
In Sweden, his blue and yellow father (see above) had developed quite a following. Indeed, Mehdi was popular. So popular that the “government plane” (the aircraft used by the prime minister and sometimes the king), was sent to the U.S. to pick him up.
At the landing: applause, interviews, crowds—it could have been a Hollywood star coming to visit.
After that, silence ... until Ghezali and a few others were arrested in Dera Ghazi Khan, a place well known to al-Qaida, on the 28th of August this year. He was taken to Islamabad together with three other Swedes and a little baby, accused of having tried to enter without a visa. The young lady and the baby were released but refused to leave the country. As for Ghezali, all we know as this is written, is that there will in all probability not be any government plane supplied when and if the time comes to fetch him.
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World Reporter
Ulf Nilson, World reporter since his first assignments to Hungary in 1956. Correspondent and Sweden’s man in America for 20 years, Ulf Nilson is still a regular columnist in Sweden’s daily Expressen, and regular contributor in Nordstjernan. He has authored or co-authored over fifty books. He lives in southern France or at his beloved Värmdö, just 30 minutes north of Stockholm. He
• covered the US, including Vietnam during the war years
• marched in the civil rights marches
• interviewed Martin Luther King
• met presidents Johnson, Nixon, Reagan and George H. W. Bush
• and, as one of Sweden’s most well-known journalists, also met with every politician, industry leader or cultural personality—all the movers and shakers of Sweden through five decades of a proliferate professional life.
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