Former Gitmo Prisoner Arrested for Assassination of Ugandan Prosecutor

Former Guantanamo detainee Jamal Kiyemba was arrested yesterday along with several other suspects in an operation by Kenyan police.  Eight men in total have been arrested in two operations.  Joan Kagezi, the Senior Principal State Attorney who was prosecuting the 2010 al Shabaab bombing in Kampala, was shot in her car in traffic by motorcycle mounted gunmen while her two daughters were with her.

According to NTV, Kiyemba is a Kampala native who immigrated to England in the 90’s where, in 1999, he converted to Islam.  From there he was able to join the Taliban in Pakistan just after the September 11 attacks in the U.S.   Kiyemba was quickly detained by Pakistan and sent to Guantanamo Bay.  The U.S. Department of Defense tried to release him to the U.K. in 2006 but instead released him in Uganda when the U.K. refused him.

The U.S. administration has thus far deflected and ignored all fallout from a pattern of bad decisions regarding the role of Gitmo in U.S. national security.  The promise to close the base was the sole pillar of the President’s counter terrorism strategy in his 2008 presidential campaign.  Kiyemba’s execution of the assassination plot against Mrs. Kagezi, a true freedom fighter on the front line of the war against totalitarian Islamism, suggests that he was able to recruit effectively as a free man outside of Gitmo.

Jamal Kiyemba’s role in the assassination of Mrs. Kagezi does serve to highlight the glaring faults in the U.S. approach to closing Gitmo but more importantly, it shows that this administration’s approach hurts our allies.  Will women like Joan Kagezi still want to fight for democracy and rule of law on the front lines in Uganda knowing that the U.S. President’s goal is to keep setting the next Jamal Kiyemba free in order to fulfill an ill conceived campaign promise?