A Paris court on Wednesday handed down one-year jail sentences to five former French detainees of the US prison camp at Guantanamo after convicting them on terrorism charges. A sixth man was acquitted.
The five men were also given suspended sentences of up to four years, but having served time during pre-trial detention, they were not expected to return behind bars. A new trial of the six men was ordered after Judge Jean-Claude Kross refused to hand down a verdict last year and instead requested information on secret interrogations led by French agents at Guantanamo.
The defence had argued that information obtained during the questioning at Guantanamo was inadmissible in court but the judge overruled the lawyers' objections during the re-trial this month. Brahim Yadel, 37, was sentenced to five years, of which four were suspended, while Mourad Benchelalli, 26, Nizar Sassi, 27, Khaled Ben Mustapha, 35 and Redouane Khalid, 39, were given four-year prison terms of which three years were suspended.
Imad Achhab Kanouni, 30, was acquitted. The six men were captured in 2001 during the US-led war to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan and handed over to US forces. Held for up to three years at the Guantanamo detention centre in Cuba, they were charged upon their return to France in 2004 and 2005 with "criminal conspiracy in relation to a terrorist enterprise".
During their initial 10-day trial last year, some of the six admitted to staying in Afghan camps linked to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, but all denied fighting US forces or planning attacks in Europe.
The jail sentences were in line with those demanded by the prosecution during the six-day re-trial earlier this month. Four of the five convicted men plan to appeal, their lawyers said. Lawyer William Bourdon, representing Benchellali and Sassi, said he was disappointed with the judge's decision to allow evidence from the Guantanamo interrogations into the prosecution's case.
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