Mysterious release of al-Qaida detainee

The media has been making much of the mystery surrounding the release by U.S. authorities in August 2004 of Abdallah Tabarak a Moroccan, suspected of having once been the bodyguard of Osama bin Laden. Yet it is by no means a new story.

Back in 2003 the news media was making much of his capture: Here is what was being said back then...

With American forces closing in on him during the battle of Tora Bora in late 2001, Osama bin Laden employed a simple trick against sophisticated United State spy technology to vanish into the mountains that led to Pakistan and sanctuary. A Moroccan who was one of bin Laden's long-time bodyguards took possession of the al-Qaeda leader's satellite phone on the assumption that US intelligence agencies were monitoring it to get a fix on their position, said senior Moroccan officials, who have interviewed the bodyguard, Abdallah Tabarak.

Tabarak moved away from bin Laden and his entourage as they fled, using the phone to divert the Americans and allow bin Laden to escape. Tabarak was later captured at Tora Bora in possession of the phone. "He agreed to be captured or die," a Moroccan official said. "That's the level of his fanaticism for bin Laden. It wasn't a lot of time, but it was enough. There is a saying: 'Where there is a frog, the serpent is not far away'."

More than a year later, Tabarak, 43, has become the "emir", or camp leader, of the more than 600 suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban members being held at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to officials who have visited the military compound twice to interview Moroccan citizens.

Some of the prisoners, by symbolically holding day-long fasts on the orders of Tabarak, have maintained some semblance of a command structure in defiance of US attempts to isolate and break them, Moroccan officials said. Tabarak's authority there "comes from his proximity to bin Laden, because of the confidence Osama bin Laden had in him", said a Moroccan intelligence officer. "He has charisma, and all the combatants at Guantanamo are deferential to him."

Tabarak, also known as Abu Omar, is respected even more because he helped bin Laden escape, the official said. The ploy involving the satellite phone is widely known and celebrated among the prisoners at Camp Delta.

But then in August 2004, he was suddenly released and now Tabarak lives near Casablanca, and, although free, is certainly under constant observation.

According to a report in the Washington Post, his case comes to light as the Pentagon gets ready for the first of its military tribunals. It points to the mysteries of U.S. priorities in deciding who to keep and who to let go - neither the Pentagon nor officials in Morocco seem willing to publicly offer any explanation why he was released.

Tabarak's attorney says his importance as an al-Qaida figure has been exaggerated.

And as for the man himself, he is very shy of the media but did speak out in February last year. Tabarak said that he still suffers from the consequences of the torture he underwent at Guantanano.

“I am now concerned about my health. I can’t see very well, because I spent more than eight months in a tiny, dark, and single cell. I also have a constant backache due to the series of beating by American soldiers. I can not sleep now; I still have nightmares,” he said.

Tags: Morocco, Fes, Maghreb, news