Mehdi Ghezali

Mehdi Mohammad Ghezali (مهدي محمد غزالي; born 5 July 1979), in media previously known as the Cuban-Swede (Kubasvensken), is a Swedish citizen of Algerian and Finnish descent who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba between January 2002 and July 2004.

Ghezali claimed to have been "physically and mentally tortured" at Guantanamo.

Prior to his capture, Ghezali attended a Muslim religious school and mosque in the United Kingdom before travelling to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and finally ended up in Pakistan where he was captured.

Following his release from detention the Swedish government dropped all charges against him for criminal misconduct prior to his capture.

Mehdi Ghezali was born in Botkyrka, Stockholm, on 5 July 1979 and grew up in Örebro, the son of an Algerian and a Finnish woman.

He finished secondary studies in 1999 and trained as a welder.

He was suspected of theft the same year, but left the country and could not be questioned by the Swedish police.

When police officers visited Ghezali's father he stated that Ghezali had left for Algeria in order to complete his military service; however, Ghezali had traveled to Portugal, supposedly to pursue a career as a football player.

Ghezali was apprehended by the Portuguese police in the Algarve region of Portugal on 31 July 1999 for a suspected bank robbery and a jewelry theft together with his partner Stavros Christos Toilos.

The bank robbery in Albufeira netted 600,000 euros while the jewelry theft in Playa de la Galé netted 5,000 euros.

Ghezali and his partner were released from prison on 12 June 2000 after having spent 10 months in a Portuguese prison without being charged, and returned to Sweden.

Ghezali then traveled to Medina in Saudi Arabia to study at the university.

However, he was not accepted and returned to Sweden in March or April 2001 for a brief period before travelling to London where he studied at the madrasah of the Muslim cleric Omar Bakri.

He then travelled to Pakistan in the summer of 2001 in order to study at one of the madrasahs situated there.

After failing to gain acceptance into any of the madrasahs, he then travelled to Afghanistan, where he, according to his own statements, stayed with a family in Jalalabad.

Ghezali stated that: "I lived a simple life, playing with the children and seeing how Afghans lived."

"Sweden's security police chief, Jan Danielsson, described Ghezali more as a confused youth traveling the world looking for spiritual fulfillment rather than a terrorist. 'We have no information that indicates he's an al-Qaeda member, much less that he held a leading position,' Danielsson said in an interview."

After the U.S. military, together with the Afghan Northern Alliance, initiated a bombing campaign on the Tora Bora mountains, a large number of al-Qaeda sympathisers and others in the affected areas fled southward to Pakistan.

Mehdi Ghezali was captured by local warlords in Pakistan in the Tora Bora mountains which are close to the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and then handed over to the U.S. Armed Forces which transported him to Guantanamo Bay Naval Base on Cuba where Ghezali was held at Guantanamo Bay detainment camp.

In December 2002, Pakistan withdrew all charges against Ghezali in connection with his arrest at the Afghan border.

Pakistan suspected him of having participated in a prison uprising in Pakistan where 17 people (including seven prison guards) were killed.

Ghezali denied having any knowledge of or participation in the prison uprising.

In December 2002, Pakistan withdrew all charges against Ghezali in connection with his arrest at the Afghan border.

Pakistan suspected him of having participated in a prison uprising in Pakistan, where 17 people (including seven prison guards) were killed.

When questioned about the prison uprising at the press conference following his release Ghezali denied having any knowledge of or participation in the prison uprising.

During his stay at Guantanamo Bay, Ghezali was visited by representatives of the Swedish government (February 2002, January and July 2003 and January 2004) and was informed that he had been assigned an attorney in Sweden (Peter Althin) and that his case had been brought up in inter-governmental contacts and had been featured on several occasions in the Swedish media.

Ghezali supposedly refused to discuss what he was doing in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the agents of the Swedish government.

After being held as an enemy combatant for 930 days, Ghezali was released into the custody of the Swedish government on 8 July 2004 since he was no longer considered a threat to the United States, since he had no information that was of interest to the American Intelligence Service and since he had not committed a crime which could be proven in a military court.

Ghezali was transported home by the Swedish Air Force on a Gulfstream IV jet, at the expense of the Swedish government (estimated at 500 000 – 600 000 Swedish kronor).

Initially, Swedish prosecutors stated that they would press charges against him for crimes committed prior to Ghezali's departure from Sweden, but they were subsequently dropped.

There were also threats made against Ghezali, it was perceived that the Swedish government had given Ghezali too much help.

On 15 May 2006, the United States Department of Defense released a list of all the individuals who had been held in military custody in their Guantanamo Bay detainment camps.

That list gave Ghezali's Guantanamo detainee ID as 166.

The DoD listed his place of birth as Stockholm.

A man bearing Ghezali's passport was one of twelve foreigners Pakistani security officials reported were captured trying to cross into Afghanistan on 28 August 2009.

According to the Associated Press Ghezali was "reportedly part of a group of 156 suspected al-Qaeda fighters caught while fleeing Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains."

Ghezali denied any links to al-Qaeda.

In July 2012, a day after the Burgas bus bombing Bulgarian media reported that Ghezali was the suicide bomber.

Swedish and Bulgarian officials denied that he was involved in any way and investigators ruled him out as a suspect within 48 hours.

Ghezali was featured in the documentary Gitmo – The New Rules of War.