Australia: Released Gitmo inmate "led US embassy attack"

The Sydney Morning Herald

Gitmo inmate 'led US embassy attack'

September 22, 2012

By Richard Spencer Benghazi

THE attack on the US consulate in Benghazi may have been led by a former inmate of Guantanamo Bay returned to Libya by the Bush administration.

US intelligence officials believe Sufyan Ben Qumu, one of the leaders of the al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia, is likely to have been behind the assault.

Ben Qumu, who now lives openly in the Libyan town of Derna, 240 kilometres east of Benghazi, was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2007.

He was imprisoned in Tripoli upon his return to Libya, but later freed by Muammar Gaddafi's regime. The 53-year-old has refused to comment on repeated allegations that Ansar al-Sharia members were present during last week's raid, which killed Chris Stevens, the US ambassador to Libya.

''Now it is very clear who was responsible for this,'' Mohammed al-Gharabi, the leader of the biggest pro-government militia, said yesterday. ''It was people from Ansar al-Sharia, not all of them but some of them, and I think [the organisation] knows who did it.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/gitmo-inmate-led-us-embassy-attack-20120921-26c8g.html#ixzz27D2dNMYI