Ben Laden's cook sent back to Sudan

Washington, 12 Jul – (ANA) - 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 being held at Guantanamo Bay prison for over a decade, the Pentagon said yesterday.

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.

The Pentagon declined to say whether 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. 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.

He was accused of acting as a cook and bodyguard for the former al Qaeda leader, who was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan last year, and helping him escape to the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan in 2001. (ANA)

FA/ANA/12 July 2012----------