Nato and Afghan forces have arrested a former inmate at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, a tribal elder said Saturday. Said Amir Jan was arrested during the same raid in which another former Guantanamo detainee was killed a week ago in the eastern city of Jalalabad. But word of his arrest only emerged Saturday.
Jan, 30, was suspected of being a "low-level member of al Qaida" before he was sent to Guantanamo in 2003, according to his military file, made public by WikiLeaks. He was assessed as medium risk in 2005 by military officials and sent back to Afghanistan in 2007.
The man killed in the raid was Sabar Lal Melma. Soldiers shot him after he confronted them with an AK-47. Nato and Afghan officials have not commented on the identities of anyone arrested in the September 2 raid. But tribal elder Rohullah Wakil, a friend of the slain man and himself a former Guantanamo detainee, said Saturday that Jan and two other people Melma's cousin and a man named Dairan were arrested. Nato raided Melma's house because he was suspected of organising attacks in eastern Kunar province and funding insurgent operations after he was released from Guantanamo in 2007. Nato officials described Melma as a key al Qaeda ally.
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