Essid Sami Ben Khemais was the head of al-Qaeda's Italian cell until his arrest outside Milan in April 2001.
He received a five-year sentence for trafficking in arms, explosives, and chemicals.
[1] Essid remains under embargo by the United Nations Security Council Committee 1267[2] as an affiliate of al-Qaeda, and by the US Treasury[3] for his terrorist activity.
Around 1 July 2007, fresh charges against Sami Essid were read in Italy, where he was still in custody.
[5] Following the United States Supreme Court ruling in Rasul v. Bush, the United States Department of Defense was forced to conduct reviews of the combatant status of the captives held in extrajudicial detention in its Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.