Mauritania is holding seven men without trial under U.S. pressure on suspicion they were recruited by an al Qaeda-linked group to fight in Iraq, their lawyers said on Monday, but the government denied bowing to Washington. The men, all young Mauritanians suspected of being trained in Algeria by an Islamic militant group, were tortured after their arrest and are still in prison despite a court order for their provisional release, their lawyers said."They are not being released under pressure from certain embassies, and particularly from the United States," said Mohameden Ould Icehidou, a lawyer representing three of the men. "It is about maintaining a permanent plot and showing that (Mauritania) is active in what is called the fight against terrorism," he told Reuters in the capital, Nouakchott.
Mauritania's military rulers denied any U.S. pressure. "There are suspected terrorists among this group. They are in the hands of the justice system," Colonel Mohamed Ould Abdel-Aziz, who led a bloodless coup last August and is a member of the country's ruling military council, told Reuters. "There can be an exchange between states in such cases but there is no pressure," he said in an interview, adding that they were being held awaiting trial while investigations continued.
U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment.
The men were arrested in April 2005 in the northern town of Nouadhibou and were tortured before Mauritania's state security service compiled a report saying they had been trained to fight in Iraq, Ould Icehidou said. He said the men were suspected of receiving training in the Sahara from the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), an Algerian militant movement, but no weapons had been found when they were arrested and no evidence had been provided to back up the claims.
"They have not been judged. There has been no evolution in this dossier," said Fatimata M'Baye, president of the Mauritanian Human Rights Association (AMDH).
| "They were just simple shepherds. Well-armed, simple shepherds." |
But many Mauritanians say former President Maaouya Ould Sid'Ahmed Taya, overthrown last August, exaggerated the militant threat to justify arresting scores of moderate Islamist opponents. "Taya hypnotised the United States in making it believe there was terrorism here," said Brahim Ould Ebetty, a Mauritanian human rights lawyer.
| "It was just lies, all lies!" |
The junta released many Islamist political prisoners in Mauritania immediately after it took power, to the alarm of some diplomats, but has repeatedly said it wants to
Local human rights groups say foreign interest in the seven detained men has made it more difficult for Mauritania's interim leaders -- anxious to maintain international goodwill during the transition -- to resolve their case quickly. "The government is very troubled by this affair. There is American pressure which they cannot get away from," Ebetty said.
Mauritania has in the past received military training from the United States as part of Washington's Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI), designed to confront the threat of terrorism, banditry and smuggling in the vast Sahel region. The United States' top diplomat for Africa, Jendayi Frazer, said on Friday the country would remain cut off from many areas of U.S. cooperation and assistance until a democratically elected government was in place. "Certainly, we can't cooperate with them at the level that we would want to, given the terrorist threat in the Trans-Sahara," she said.