US captured Bin Laden son-in-law on the way to Kuwait

ANKARA - Hürriyet

Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith. Hürriyet photo

The CIA recently captured Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith while passing from Jordan to Kuwait, soon after leaving Turkey, daily Hürriyet reported today.

The U.S. asked Turkey to extradite Abu Ghaith after his detention in Ankara early February.

Abu Ghaith, the former spokesman of the al-Qaeda terror network, was seized in a luxury hotel in Ankara after a tip-off from CIA. He was held there by police for 33 days, the Hürriyet report said.

However, a Turkish court decided to release Abu Ghaith after 33 days in detention on the grounds that he had not committed any crime in Turkey.

Ankara considered Ghaith a “stateless” person, as he was stripped of his Kuwaiti nationality after appearing in videos defending the 9/11 attacks and threatening further violence.

Turkish police also found no criminal record for Abu Ghaith, who entered the country illegally from Iran; he could therefore be deported to Iran or to another country of his choice. After Iran did not accept him, Turkey decided to send him to Kuwait via Jordan. Abu Ghaith was sent to Jordan on March 1, the same day U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry visited Turkey.

The CIA started the operation while Abu Ghaith was passing from Jordan to Kuwait. He was captured and taken to the U.S.

The United States wanted Abu Ghaith extradited over his alleged connection to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York.

His detention in Turkey after he allegedly entered the country illegally from Iran came in the same week that the U.S. embassy in Ankara was targeted in a suicide bombing claimed by a radical anti-U.S. leftwing group.

He appeared in a propaganda video in the aftermath of 9/11, standing beside bin Laden, who was killed in May 2011 in Pakistan in a covert U.S. operation.