The former cook of slain Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden returned to his native Sudan early Wednesday, the foreign ministry said, after his release from the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Ibrahim al-Qosi “is already in Khartoum since early this morning” after his arrival on a United States military aircraft, Foreign Ministry spokesman Al-Obeid Meruh told AFP. “He is a free man,” Meruh said. Court documents in August 2010 showed that Qosi’s 14-year sentence would be suspended this month and that he would be returned to Sudan. He was the first Guantanamo detainee to be tried by military tribunal under revised rules introduced by the administration of President Barack Obama. Under a plea deal, Qosi, 50, admitted in July 2010 to providing support to terrorism and conspiracy. Details of the plea deal were not released at the time. He had been held at the US-run Guantanamo prison since 2002.
