Ex-Guantanamo inmate detained in Toronto -lawyer

TORONTO, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Mourad Benchellali, a French
national and former Guantanamo Bay inmate, was detained by
Canadian police at a Toronto airport on Monday on his way to a
conference, his lawyer said on Wednesday.
Benchellali, who is now an anti-extremism activist, was set
to attend a conference in Canada on preventing radicalization in
prisons, but local authorities still consider him a "threat to
national security," Radio-Canada reported. His lawyer confirmed
the Radio-Canada report, but did not comment further.
A Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) spokesman could not
immediately confirm the detention, but the filmmaker who had
invited Benchellali to Canada to be part of a documentary she is
producing said he was now detained in a maximum security prison.
Toronto-based filmmaker Eileen Thalenberg said by phone on
Wednesday that she invited Benchellali to be part of a
documentary she is producing for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp
because of his prevention work with youth.
Thalenberg said she checked with the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police and received assurances before bringing Benchellali from
France to Iceland and then to Canada, so he would not fly over
American airspace.
"I would have never brought him otherwise," she told
Reuters.
The RCMP declined to comment, referring queries to the CBSA,
which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Thalenberg said Benchellali sent her a text message from
prison on Wednesday saying: "I never thought I'd be in an orange
jumpsuit again."
Originally from a suburb of Lyon, Benchellali was arrested
at an Al Qaida training camp in Afghanistan and taken into
custody by the U.S. army. He was an inmate at Guantanamo from
January 2002 to July 2004.
For the past two years he has been involved in an initiative
to stop young people from joining terror groups in Syria,
according to his supporters.
Benchellali was previously stopped from boarding a flight to
Canada in June because he is still on the U.S. government's
no-fly list and the plane would have passed through U.S.
airspace.