Osama bin Laden’s cook released from Guantanamo

WASHINGTON - Reuters

Ibrahim al-Qosi, a former al-Qaeda cook, released from Guantanamo. AP photo

The United States has sent a Sudanese man accused of guarding Osama bin Laden and helping him escape U.S. forces back to Sudan after holding him at Guantanamo Bay prison for over a decade, the Pentagon said on July 11.

Ibrahim al-Qosi was sentenced to 14 years after pleading guilty in 2010 to conspiring with al-Qaeda and providing material support to terrorism, the Pentagon said in a statement.

He completed his reduced, two-year sentence before his transfer took place, the statement said. The Pentagon declined to say whether al-Qosi, described as a “cook and sometimes driver” for al-Qaeda, had been freed in Sudan or held by the government there.

“We coordinated with the government of Sudan on appropriate security measures to mitigate any threat that he continues to pose,” said Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman. Al-Qosi was alleged to have run the kitchen at bin Laden’s Star of Jihad compound in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and of having been part of an al-Qaeda mortar crew.