The German government decided to form a "special measures committee" to study ways of deporting a Tunisian man, who allegedly served as one of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards, to his home country.
Germany’s Federal Ministry of Interior announced Thursday the formation of this committee and said it will focus primarily on receiving assurances from the Tunisian government not to torture and humiliate Sami A. once he lands in his country.
The federal interior ministry established this committee back in 2005, and it is being controlled by the parliament (Bundestag).
The committee’s headquarters is in the Berlin-based Joint Counterterrorism Center, and it includes experts from the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Federal Intelligence Service (BND).
It is specialized in cases of terrorism suspects and "dangerous" militants, who are not German nationals. It also considers cases of the withdrawal of asylum from serious and criminal offenders.
A spokesman for the federal interior ministry said “there are attempts to deport the former bodyguard of Bin Laden” and a ministerial task force will examine the case soon.
Responding to queries from the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, the government of North Rhine-Westphalia state said the 42-year-old can’t be deported because he might face torture in Tunisia.
The man, only identified as Sami A., has lived in Germany since 1997 and gets €1,168 (£1,022) a month in welfare payments.
The figure was revealed by a regional government, after the far-right AfD asked about him.
Sami A was investigated for alleged al-Qaeda links in 2006, but he was not charged.
According to witness testimony from a German anti-terror trial in 2005, Sami A. served for several months in 2000 as one of Bin Laden's bodyguards in Afghanistan. He denies that, but judges in Dusseldorf believed the witness.
He lives with a German wife and four children in the city of Bochum, in western Germany.
After obtaining a temporary residence permit in Germany in 1999 he took several technology courses and moved to the city in 2005.
His asylum application was rejected in 2007 because the authorities had listed him as a security risk. He has to report daily at a police station.
The Federal Constitutional Service has put Sami A. since 2012 in the list of dangerous hardliners, whom the department believes they are ready to carry out terrorist operations in Germany.
