Ex-Guantanamo inmates face probe in France

PARIS, March 12 (AFP) – Two former French detainees at the US Guantanamo Bay naval base were placed under formal investigation Friday by an anti-terrorist judge in Paris, according to lawyers.

Investigating judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere asked that Khaled Ben Mustapha and Ridouane Khalid be held in jail pending inquiries into their alleged links with a group suspected of plotting terrorism.

But Khalid, 36, was released shortly afterwards.

They and another former Guantanamo detainee, Mustaq Ali Patel, were the last three French citizens held at the base. Four others were returned in July and were still in jail as their case unfolded.

Patel was released without charge on Wednesday, 48 hours after the three arrived in Paris aboard a French military flight.

Of the latest prisoners sent back to France, Khalid has two brothers already under investigation for alleged terrorism-related crimes.

Ben Mustafa, 33, who is a married father of two, went to Afghanistan to learn Arabic, according to his family and lawyers.

Patel, who is aged about 40, was born in India but has French nationality through his marriage to a woman from La Reunion.

He was reported to have been an imam at a French mosque before going to Afghanistan and has family in Britain.

There are about 540 detainees from 40 countries at the Camp X-Ray maximum security facility at Guantanamo. Most were detained in Afghanistan following the US-led campaign to topple the Taliban and catch Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 attacks.