Released 2007 | Detained at black sites Name Munir Awad | |
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Arrested 2007SomaliaKenyan Army Charge(s) extrajudicial detention | ||
Munir Awad (Arabic: منير عوض) is a Lebanon-born citizen of Sweden and a convicted terrorist. Munir Awad, and his fiancee were arrested in Kenya in 2007 when Ethopian forces invaded Somalia and foreigners were detained to stem suspected terrorists. In 2009 police who arrested them in Pakistan found a suicide belt in their luggage. On December 29, 2010 Awad was arrested in Denmark for the Copenhagen terror plot, and found guilty in 2012.
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Captured in Kenya
Munir Awad, and his fiancee, Safia Benaouda (daughter to Helena Benaouda, head of Muslim Council of Sweden), were arrested in Kenya on January 18, 2007 when they fled Somalia after Ethopian forces, with United States support, invaded Somalia.
The pair describe being held in extrajudicial detention following the invasion, together with a large number of foreigners. They were eventually released. They told reporters for Press TV that the soldiers who captured them were led by Americans and that Americans ran their interrogations.
According to an interview his fiancee gave to Raymond Bonner of the International Herald Tribune her interrogators kept asking her questions about a trip they said her boyfriend took to Denmark to recruit jihadists. Benaouda told her interviewer that she told her interrogators that Awad had never been to Denmark, and that he did not convert to Islam until after 2004.
Benaouda said she and her boyfriend had traveled to Dubai, on vacation, but were disappointed at how commercialized facilities for tourists were. So they traveled to Somalia to see a more traditional Muslim culture. They arrived in Somalia shortly before it was invaded by Kenya.
Captured in Pakistan
On August 20, 2009 the pair and their young child were apprehended in Pakistan, together with fellow Swede Mehdi Ghezali, and nine other non-Pakistanis. Ghezali is reported to have told authorities that they were traveling to Lahore to participate in a Tablighi Jamaat conference. Mohammad Rizwan, the chief of police of Dera Ghazi Khan, who captured the individuals, has told the press that their luggage included a laptop computer, $10,000 USD and a suicide belt.
In November 2010, two Muslim organisations Cageprisoners and The Muslim Human Rights Committee (MMRK) published a report asserting Munir Awads innocence. The paper was co-authoured by the spokesman for the MMRK, Kitimbwa Sabuni, who is related to Swedish Minister Nyamko Sabuni.
2010 Copenhagen terror plot
On December 29, 2010 he was once again arrested in Denmark, this time for the Copenhagen terror plot that was allegedly planning a "Mumbai-style" attack in revenge for the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. In addition to Awad the suspects include 30-year-old Swede Omar Abdalla Aboelazm, 44-year-old Tunisian national Mounir Dhahri, and 37-year-old Swede of Tunisian descent, Sahbi Zalouti. In June 2012 Awad along with the 3 other suspects were found guilty by the Danish court and they were sentenced to 12 years in prison.