More on the Bulgarian terrorist explosion

We now have a final figure of those killed: five Israelis, the Bulgarian bus driver and one terrorist. The last one has been named by the Bulgarian media as Mehdi Ghezali, though when this went to press there was no independent confirmation. The story came from somewhere, though.

Ghezali was reportedly a Swedish citizen, with Algerian and Finnish origins. He had been held at the US’s Guantanamo Bay detainment camp on Cuba from 2002 to 2004, having previously studied at a Muslim religious school and mosque in Britain, and traveled to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Following a lobbying effort by Swedish prime minister Göran Persson, Guantanamo authorities recommended Ghezali be transferred to another country for continued detainment, and he was handed over to Swedish authorities in 2004.

The Swedish government did not press charges. He was also reportedly among 12 foreigners captured trying to cross into Afghanistan in 2009.

Covering all bases here.

More information here.

Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali was born in Stockholm in 1979. He is the son of an Algerian immigrant and a Finnish woman. He finished secondary studies in 1999 and trained as a welder.

Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali then he traveled to Portugal, supposedly to pursue a career as a Football player. Ghezali was apprehended by the Portuguese Police in Algarve, on 07/31/1999, for a suspected bank robbery and a jewelry theft. Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali and his partner were sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment, but were released early. Ghezali was released from prison on 06/12/2000, after having spent 10 months in a Portuguese prison, and returned to Sweden (his father claimed that Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali went to Algeria to serve in the Algerian Army).

Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali then traveled to Medina, Saudi Arabia, to study at the university. However, he was not accepted and returned to Sweden in 04/2001 for a brief period before travelling to London where he studied at the Madrasa of the Muslim cleric Omar Bakri Muhammad. He then travelled to Pakistan in the summer of 2001 in order to study at one of the Madrasas situated there. After failing to gain acceptance into any of the Madrasas he then travelled to Afghanistan, where he according to his own statements stayed with a family in Jalalabad.

You can also see him on the video if you scroll down. We are assuming this is the right guy.

Why does this not surprise me?

Thanks to Powerline I find a story in the Washington Post of all newspapers: six Algerians due to be repatriated to their own country from the evil, villainous place called Guantanamo, which is according to Amnesty International, the nearest thing we have to a Gulag these days (clearly not heard of China or North Korea), have refused to do so. Yes, that's right, these people want to stay and suffer the humiliation and maltreatment they have to experience every day rather than go back to their own country where they are likely to be treated far worse.

The administration secured a significant legal victory Thursday when a federal appeals court overturned a lower court's ruling that had barred the government from repatriating one of them. The detainee had asserted that if he is returned, the Algerian government will torture him or he will be targeted by terrorist groups who will kill him if he refuses to join.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler had ruled that the claims of Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed, 49, who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than eight years, "are of great concern." She said the court must ensure that there is "real substance" behind any diplomatic assurances obtained by the administration that detainees repatriated to Algeria will be treated humanely.

Dear me. You mean there are places in the world where people are treated less humanely than in Guantanamo? You'd never believe it if you pay attention to the outcries in the media and from various tranzis. Though, to be fair, now that President Obama has decided that the urgent moral necessity is no longer there and Gitmo stays open for the time being, you hear far fewer outcries.