Ex-Gitmo inmate among 6 detained from French jihadi network

PARIS – A former Guantanamo Bay inmate is among six people from an alleged jihadi recruiting network linked to the Islamic State group who were detained on Tuesday, a French judicial source said.

Among the suspects arrested was Sabir Mahfouz Lahmar, who was freed from the U.S. detention centre in Cuba in 2009 after France agreed to accept him, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the case.

Lahmar was one of six Algerians detained in Bosnia in 2001 on suspicion of plotting to bomb the U.S. embassy in Sarajevo. The Justice Department later backed off the allegations, but held the men at Guantanamo for years. Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to take him in April 2009, and Lahmar moved to Bordeaux later that year.

The French official said Lamar, at 48, is the oldest of the four men and two women who were arrested and said that there were no indications the group was plotting an attack.

Five of the suspects were detained in Bordeaux, one in Paris.