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Egypt: Human Rights Activist Identifies 2 Former Egyptian Guantanamo Detainees | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Cairo, Asharq Al-Awsat- Muhammad Zari, director of the Human Rights Society for Helping Prisoners, has revealed to Asharq Al-Awsat the identity of the recently released Egyptian Guantanamo detainee.

The detainee as 26 year old Alaadinn Muhammad Salim who was born in Al-Minufiyah Governorate, who according to the Egyptian Foreign Ministry was deported to Albania after his release from Guantanamo in Cuba.

Zari said the identity of the second detainee — which the Foreign Ministry announced had returned to Egypt, but did not identify him — has not been confirmed yet but is likely to be Adil Fattuh al-Jazzar whose left leg was amputated in November 2005 in Guantanamo.

Zari, whose Human Rights group obtained a court order at the end of last year binding the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to exert its efforts to bring back the Egyptian detainees in Guantanamo, said in a statement to “Asharq al-Awsat” that Salim was arrested by the American authorities in the middle of 2002 and was deported to Albania last December as this was his wish. He added that Salim applied for political asylum in Albania and was put for some time under watch by the Albanian authorities in preparation for looking into granting him asylum.

He added that he received two telephone calls from Salim since his arrival in Albania in which he told him that he was enjoying relatively reasonable freedom but not full one because he was still under watch. He said that Salim pointed out that he was suffering from some health problems resulting from his torture in Guantanamo, most notably a severe loss of hearing. He noted that Salim’s big problem is the refusal of his family in Cairo to answer his calls or those of his Egyptian or American lawyers. He added that a team of American lawyers who sponsor the case of the Egyptian detainees in Guantanamo before the American judiciary visited Salim in Albania in the middle of December to check on his legal status and he asked them to try to persuade his family in Cairo to answer his calls.