Reply #1: Aznar sent police to interrogate Guantanamo detainees illegally

[Judi Lynn]

Aznar sent police to interrogate Guantanamo detainees illegally
By: thinkSPAIN
Tuesday, February 13, 2007

According to a report in today's El Pais, the previous Spanish government led by José María Aznar sent a party of Spanish police officers to interrogate twenty prisoners at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay between the 21st-26th June 2002 without the authorisation of the Spanish judiciary. The alleged incident occurred during the period when the Defence and Interior ministers were Federico Trillo and Ángel Acebes respectively.

Four National Police officers made the trip, the purpose of which was to investigate a terror cell set up by the Syrian Abu Dahdah, who was the head of Al Qaeda in Spain. They were accompanied throughout by American CIA agents.

Among those questioned was Lahcen Ikasrrien, who was arrested in Afghanistan in 2001, but now lives in Madrid after being cleared on all charges by the High Court, which refused to admit any of the evidence or testimony from the four officers sent to Cuba.

Mr Ikasrrien is now claiming that he was offered money and protected witness status in return for his collaboration: "I told them the truth, but they wanted me to say I was a terrorist and that I had been trained in Afghanistan, which was not true," he told an El Pais reporter.
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http://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/12626