Delivered Into Enemy Hands - Human Rights Watch

Abu Farsan spent the next decade at Libyan opposition training camps in Afghanistan and
Sudan, with brief visits to Egypt, Malta, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. He told Human Rights
Watch, “Afghanistan was a good place for the Libyans to train to get new skills to fight
Gaddafi. At the time there was no other country that allowed us to be together and train.”
In 1994, he returned to Libya to visit family and stayed for two years, much of it in hiding.
Then in June 1996, he left again, this time going to Sudan to train with the LIFG. He spent
about five years in Sudan and got a Sudanese passport. In May 2001, he went to Syria and
got married, and then shortly afterwards he went to Afghanistan.
When he arrived in Afghanistan, Abu Farsan said, everyone at the various training camps
knew that al Qaeda was planning some sort of operation against the United States. He said
there was an open debate about it amongst all of the various groups. Even many al Qaeda
Arabs did not agree with bin Laden’s methods, he said: “The LIFG did not want anything to
do with it. We did not agree with these actions, but Afghanistan was a refuge for all wanted
people.” After the September 11 attacks, Abu Farsan said he spent the next several months
“running around all over the place trying to find some safe refuge.”
He went first to Pakistan, then to Syria and Iran. Along the way, his wife gave birth to a son,
so he returned to Sudan to add his son to his passport. He spent the next few years on the
move, moving back and forth among Syria, Iraq, Malaysia, and China. “I was worried
constantly I was going to get caught any minute,” he said. During this period, he was in
contact with Belhadj and Saadi, who were also in Asia at the time.
In early 2004, he decided to seek asylum in Europe. On February 19, 2004, traveling with
Moroccan passports, Abu Farsan, his wife, and his infant son, boarded a KLM flight bound
for Morocco via the Netherlands. “I thought that if I made it to Holland and asked for
asylum, I would be okay there. My son was less than two years old,” Abu Farsan said.
When he arrived in the Netherlands, the Dutch authorities held him for six months while
they entertained his asylum application. The Dutch authorities found his Sudanese passport
and were trying to insist he was Sudanese but he told them that he was in fact Libyan
but could not get Libyan documentation from the Libyan government. He applied for
asylum based on his Libyan nationality saying he could not return to that country. The
Dutch authorities appear to have given his application consideration. He was provided a
lawyer and took part in immigration proceedings. At one point he said he was asked to
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