GOOD THING he was innocent:

Spanish police have arrested 11 suspects linked to Islamic militants in a raid on a poor neighbourhood in Spain's North African enclave Ceuta, an Interior Ministry official said on Tuesday.

Spanish media reported that one of those arrested was Hamed Abderrahaman Ahmed, a Spaniard who spent two years in U.S. detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after being captured in Pakistan. The so-called "Spanish Taliban" was freed earlier this year after terrorism charges in Spain were overturned.

You may not know, but this guy was the poster boy of popular opinion here, who saw him as one of the examples of Bush trumping the civil liberties of people all over the world, etc. They war saying he had been unfairly arrested and imprisoned, only because he 'happened' to be in Afghanistan. In the middle of a war. With the Taliban.

You got to admit the guy masterly managed the media, selling the sob story of how he was a Bush prisoner and how badly he was treated at Gitmo. People here took it hook, line and sinker: it was exactly what they wanted to hear.


UPDATE. The judge has clarified that the former Guantanamo inmate is not among the arrested (link in Spanish); two of his brothers are.