VIENNA, Austria (AP) – The justice ministry and a human rights watchdog on Tuesday vehemently rejected allegations that a young Muslim couple jailed in Vienna was being held in the “Guantanamo of Austria. The pair was found guilty last month of involvement in a March 2007 video threatening Austria and Germany with attacks if they did not withdraw military personnel from Afghanistan.
Both received jail terms. Al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa, which is holding two Austrian tourists hostage, said in an online posting Monday that the couple was being held and tortured in the “Guantanamo of Austria” a reference to a U. S. prison on Cuba criticized for alleged human rights abuses and urged the public to press Austrian authorities for their release.
The posting was intercepted by the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist Internet traffic. “There is no Guantanamo in Austria,” said Justice Ministry spokesman Thomas Geiblinger. “That must be strictly rejected. Geiblinger said all efforts were being made to “scrupulously” respect the couple’s religious needs and that was routine in all of Austria’s jails.
He said both the public prosecutor’s office and a special commission were immediately asked to look into allegations of abuse and improper treatment of the pair.
He also said representatives from the human rights group Amnesty International were “very welcome” to visit the couple. In February, the Austrian magazine Profil ran a story about alleged abuse of the couple in detention that mentioned Guantanamo in the headline. Austrian Justice Minister Maria Berger, in televised remarks at the time, disputed that “Guantanamo methods” were being used in Austrian prisons.
Heinz Patzelt, secretary-general of Austria’s branch of Amnesty International, said he was in touch both with the justice ministry and the couple’s lawyer and currently saw no need to carry out such a visit. “Whoever would say this is Guantanamo in Austria is absolutely wrong and diminishes the extreme human rights problems and abuses that exist in Guantanamo,” Patzelt said. “Generally speaking, the Austrian jail system doesn’t raise concerns of human rights abuses,” he added.
Lennart Binder, the couple’s lawyer, said the Guantanamo comparison was an “excessive exaggeration”. According to Monday’s posting, al-Qaida in Islamic North Africa has dropped earlier demands it made in exchange for the release of the two tourists and instead wants Austria to pull its soldiers out of Afghanistan and release the Muslim couple _ identified in the posting as Mohammed Mahmoud, a. k. a Gharib al-Diyar, and his wife. Binder seemed perplexed by the demand. “I don’t see any connection between the Sahara hostages and my two clients,” he said.
The tourists, Andrea Kloiber and Wolfgang Ebner, disappeared in February while on vacation in Tunisia. For weeks now, Austria has worked intensely on a diplomatic level in an effort to free them. Three deadlines to meet demands set by the kidnappers have come and gone; the latest expired Sunday at midnight. In their posting Monday, the group said it will not be held responsible for the fate of the tourists.
