I?m Not Osama?s Man -Gazali

My Arrest Was Like A Film

Daily Guide -- Mr. Mohammed Gazali, also called Nafiu, the 36-year-old Ghanaian arrested along with eight other persons on suspicion of having links with Osama Bin Laden?s terror organisation, Al-Qaeda has been released in Spain.

Speaking to Daily Guide in an exclusive interview last Tuesday January 3, 2006 from his base in Malaga, Spain, Gazali, who is Hausa extraction and was a resident of Kumasi and a Muslim said he was picked up with eight suspects from countries, including Egypt, Morocco and Algeria on December 19, 2005. However three of them were released on December 23, after interrogation and a court appearance in Madrid and have since been reporting to a nearby police station every week. Mohammed is expected to report back tomorrow, January 6, 2006, but he is confused because the day is a public holiday in Spain. He said his arrest was like a film.

?It was like a film. I was shocked when I was told that I am a member of the Al-Qaeda, he told Daily Guide from Malaga. Explaining the circumstances that led to his arrest, Gazali, described as stocky and bearded said he has been living in Spain for the past four years and is married to a Spaniard woman who has converted to Islam. He said he worships at a Mosque with an Iraqi whom he said holds a British passport and occasionally exchanges pleasantries with him.

However, unknown to him, Gazali said the Iraqi had come under the surveillance of the Spanish security and was being closely monitored. He recalled that about year ago, his neighbours hinted that his movement was being trailed and photographs of his house had been taken. According to Mohammed, he failed to pay heed to the caution and to notice that his telephone had been bugged.

He conceded that even though he has the telephone number of the Iraqi, he never visited his house, limiting their relationship to the mosque and occasional phone calls. He denied ever being a member of the Al-Qaeda group saying that it was erroneous to link him with the terrorist group.

Gazali said the police would not have released him if he had any links with the terrorist group. He said that nothing incriminating was found in his house, when the Police raided it, except phone numbers retrieved from it.

On the accusations of issuing forged documents to a Hamburg mosque in Germany and trafficking African immigrants, Gazali denied the allegations. He said he had never been involved in either passport falsification, or human trafficking. Gazali conceded that he has a German Muslim friend whom he occasionally engaged in conversations but had never conspired nor been involved in any movements associated with Al-Qaeda.