Ex-Guantanamo detainee may contest Australian election

Malaysia Sun (IANS) Thursday 1st February, 2007

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib said Thursday that he would be one of a possible seven Muslim candidates standing for office at next month's New South Wales state election.

Egyptian-born Habib, an unemployed former office cleaner, said his platform would be 'the right to fight racism, the end of scapegoating of Aborigines, Muslims and migrants' and 'the right to oppose Australia's involvement in Iraq'.

Habib, who was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2005 after being held by US authorities for three years without charge, is suspected of training in Afghanistan and Pakistan with Al Qaeda. He is hoping for support among Sydney's large Lebanese Muslim community.

Islamic Friendship Association of Australia founder Keysar Trad said the state's 100,000 Muslim voters were about to flex their political muscle.

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