A prisoner at Guantanamo Bay was held for 13 years in
what now appears to be a case of mistaken identity, U.S. officials have said.Mustafa al-Aziz al-Shamiri, from Yemen, was detained and
taken to the U.S. base in Cuba on the grounds that he was an al-Qaeda courier
and trainer.
Following an assessment by a U.S. panel on whether
al-Shamiri should be released, officials conceded that he was not, in fact, a
senior al-Qaeda militant but a low-level Islamist fighter. The confusion, the
report said, stemmed from similarities in the name of al-Shamiri and the man
whose crimes he was alleged to have committed.
‘Mustafa Abd-al-Qawi Abd-al-Aziz al-Shamiri (YM-434)
fought in several jihadist theaters and associated with al-Qaeda members in
Afghanistan,’ the Department of Defense’s detainee profile read.
‘It was previously assessed that YM-434 also was an
al-Qaeda facilitator or courier, as well as a trainer, but we now judge that
these activities were carried out by other known extremists with names or
aliases similar to YM-434’s.’
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