You can meet Gitmo duo at the mall – Amaliba

Visitors of the various malls in the country can, at any time, meet the two former Guantanamo Bay detainees at the shopping halls of those facilities, government communicator Abraham Amaliba has said.

Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby are in Ghana for two years as part of a deal reached between the governments of the United States and Ghana.

President John Mahama recently said the two posed no security threat to the country and will be under constant surveillance.

The two, President Mahama added, are being housed on the compound of national security.

Several Christian groups, including the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council, Christian Council of Ghana, Presbyterian Council of Ghana and the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference have kicked against the move.

The Chief Imam’s Office has, however, urged Ghanaians to help integrate the two into society.

Islamic scholar and lecturer Dr Mustapha Hamid recently said by the mere dint of accepting the Atef and Al-Dhuby, Ghana has now become a “legitimate target” of jihadists and terrorist groups in the world. “What I am telling Hanna Tetteh [Minister of Foreign Affairs] is that this fundamentalist ideology, which they held when they were at Tora Bora, has further been accentuated by the 14 years of incarceration in Guantanamo.

“They [Jihadist groups] may not have anything against Ghana as a nation, but they certainly do have something against America, especially so because America has confessed that it had no evidence for which it incarcerated them for 14 years. A school of jihadist ideology is that: ‘The friend of your enemy is your enemy.’ That one is a non-negotiable aspect of the ideology that feeds al-Qaeda, Taliban, al-Shabab and Boko Haram, so we have shown by this act, which we believe to be an act of generosity and compassion, but in their mind, it is an act of complicity in the sense that we have shown ourselves to be allies of America. And Osama Bin Laden, who is, if you want, the ideologue of the jihadist movement, has stipulated this very clearly.

He says that America and all its allies, including Israel and the rest of them, are all legitimate targets, so, I am putting it to you that it is not true that these people will see Ghana as intercessors.

In fact, what we have done has just given us out as allies of America, and, therefore, we, in the eyes of jihadist ideology, have become legitimate targets,” Dr Hamid, who lectures at the University of Cape Coast told Bernard Avle on the Citi Breakfast Show on Monday.

Ghanaians have also expressed fears on social media that they two could be up to no good while in Ghana.

Responding to those fears on Class91.3fm’s Executive breakfast show on Friday January 15, Mr Amaliba said although the two were kept in solitary captivity for 14 years and water-boarded sometimes, “back in Ghana here, they are not in that type of situation...they are in the national security compound, they are being monitored, if they want to move out, the national security is with them, so they are not left free.”

Asked by host Ekow Mensah-Shalders if they could venture out to the mall just as everyone could, Mr Amaliba responded: “Oh yea, they can move freely, you can meet them at the mall, but there’ll be some monitoring of them, they are not just on their own, they live in a state security apparatus, you and me don’t have that surveillance everyday …” he added.