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Germany: ‘Special Measures Committee’ to Study Deporting Osama Bin Laden’s Bodyguard

Osama bin Laden. Reuters
Osama bin Laden. Reuters
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Germany: ‘Special Measures Committee’ to Study Deporting Osama Bin Laden’s Bodyguard

Osama bin Laden. Reuters
Osama bin Laden. Reuters

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.

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Surgery on Colombian Senator Went Well after Shooting, Wife Says

Police officers guard the area surrounding the Fundacion Santa Fe clinic, where Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe is hospitalized after being shot in Bogota on June 8, 2025. (Photo by Alejandro MARTINEZ / AFP)
Police officers guard the area surrounding the Fundacion Santa Fe clinic, where Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe is hospitalized after being shot in Bogota on June 8, 2025. (Photo by Alejandro MARTINEZ / AFP)
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Surgery on Colombian Senator Went Well after Shooting, Wife Says

Police officers guard the area surrounding the Fundacion Santa Fe clinic, where Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe is hospitalized after being shot in Bogota on June 8, 2025. (Photo by Alejandro MARTINEZ / AFP)
Police officers guard the area surrounding the Fundacion Santa Fe clinic, where Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe is hospitalized after being shot in Bogota on June 8, 2025. (Photo by Alejandro MARTINEZ / AFP)

Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe, a potential presidential contender, survived an initial operation for his injuries after being shot in Bogota on Saturday, according to his wife and the hospital treating him, although he remains in intensive care.

Uribe, 39, is a member of the opposition right-wing Democratic Center party and was shot in the head during a campaign event in a public park in the Fontibon neighborhood.

A boy under 15 years of age was arrested after the shooting, the attorney general's office said in a statement on Saturday, adding he was carrying a 9-millimeter Glock-type pistol.

The government said it is investigating if there were other potential perpetrators. Leftist President Gustavo Petro urged an investigation into who had ordered the attack in remarks late on Saturday.

Campaigning is just beginning for the country's 2026 presidential election and Uribe, who is from a prominent political family, does not have a well-known platform so far.

It was unclear why he was targeted in the attack. Though he has talked about the need to improve security and about having personally suffered in the country's conflict, many other potential candidates, including others from his party, have also said steps must be taken to tackle crime.

Uribe's grandfather was president from 1978 to 1982, while his mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was kidnapped in 1990 by an armed group under the command of the late cartel leader Pablo Escobar. She was killed during a rescue operation in 1991.

"Miguel came out of surgery, he made it. Every hour is a critical hour. He fought his first battle, and it went well," his wife Maria Claudia Tarazona told local media on Sunday. "This will take time."

The couple are parents to a young son, Reuters reported.

In a statement, the Santa Fe Foundation hospital where Uribe was treated said he had procedures on his head and his left thigh, and remained in intensive care as doctors seek to stabilize his condition.

Uribe's party said in a statement that armed subjects shot him from behind. Videos on social media showed a man, identified as Uribe, being tended to after the shooting. He appeared to be bleeding from his head.

Bogota's mayor, Carlos Galan, whose own presidential candidate father was assassinated in 1989, addressed journalists outside the hospital overnight, saying he had asked for increased protection for all candidates in Bogota and for Uribe's family.

UNDER INVESTIGATION

The Colombian government is offering some $730,000 as a reward for information in the case.

"For now there is nothing more than hypothesis," Petro said, adding that failures in security protocols would also be looked into. Uribe had the bodyguard protection provided for senators and other officials.

Petro sympathized with Uribe's family in a message on X, saying: "I don't know how to ease your pain. It is the pain of a mother lost, and of a homeland."

People gathered outside the hospital in northern Bogota, staging candlelight vigils and praying, while others carried Colombian flags. A march of support was planned for Sunday.

Several nations on Sunday including Brazil, Italy, Spain, Uruguay and Paraguay condemned the attack, as did the Venezuelan government and opposition.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement that the US "condemns in the strongest possible terms the attempted assassination" of Uribe, blaming Petro's "inflammatory rhetoric" for the violence.

Petro was an outspoken critic of US President Donald Trump's deportation policies earlier this year, but has been less vocal since Trump threatened to impose tariffs and sanctions on the Andean country.

Colombia has for decades been embroiled in a conflict between leftist rebels, criminal groups descended from right-wing paramilitaries, and the government.