A suspected suicide-bomber who recently blew up a bus with Israeli tourists in Bulgaria could be a former inmate of the U.S. Guantanamo prison in Cuba, the Bulgarian media reported.
The man, identified by the media as 33-year-old Swedish citizen of Algerian origin Mehdi Ghezali, boarded on Wednesaday a bus with 40 Israeli tourists at the airport of Burgas, a city on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, and blew himself up, killing five Israeli citizens and a local bus driver as well.
The suicide bomber was allegedly carrying an American passport and Michigan driver’s license, both believed to be fakes.
Bulgarian and Swedish officials immediately denied media speculations saying the bombing suspect's name was incorrect and Mehdi Ghezali was not the bomber behind the Burgas attack.
The Bulgarian authorities, together with FBI, CIA and Israeli police, are still examining the evidence from the blast scene and the suspect's fingerprints and DNA.
According to the Bulgarian media, Ghezali had been held at the notorious Guantanamo Bay detainment camp from 2002 to 2004 on suspicion of being an al-Qaeda agent.
He was handed over to Sweden in 2004 and released by Swedish authorities shortly after.
Bulgarian authorities said the suspect arrived in the country at least a week before the attack and could have had “logistical support on Bulgarian territory.”
Israel on Thursday blamed radical Islamist movement Hezbollah, directed by Iran, for the attack, but Tehran called the accusation "baseless."
