[wvns] 4 Brits freed from Guantánamo
And then there was one: four British residents freed from Guantánamo
Amnesty questions why one man must stay in jail
Ed Pilkington in New York, Alexandra Topping
Saturday December 8, 2007
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2224408,00.html#article_continue
Four British residents held without charge at the American detention
camp for suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba are to be
released, reducing the UK involvement with the camp to just one inmate.
The four men have all lived in Britain after being granted refugee
status or temporary immigration status. They have struggled to have
their cases heard because until recently Britain refused to represent
them on the grounds that they were not UK citizens.
Three of the men - Jamil el-Banna, Omar Deghayes and Abdenour Samuer -
are to be allowed to return to the UK by Christmas. A fourth, Shaker
Abdur-Raheem Aamer, will be sent back to his home country, Saudi Arabia.
That leaves one UK resident, Binyam Mohammed al-Habashi from Ethiopia,
still in Guantánamo. The Pentagon claims he is particularly dangerous
and it is determined that he stays to face one of the military
commissions established to prosecute prisoners at the camp.
News of the imminent release of the four men came three months after
the UK reversed its previous policy and decided to represent the men.
Until August the official Foreign Office position was that the
prisoners were not entitled to representation because they were not
British nationals.
But David Miliband, the foreign secretary, responded to criticism of
the government's position and agreed to take up their cases. He wrote
to his US counterpart, Condoleezza Rice, requesting their release.
The Foreign Office would not confirm reports last night that the men
would be released and said discussions were ongoing. A spokesman said:
"We have held detailed discussions with the Americans...
"We considered the circumstances of each case with the US and we are
in contact with the families and the legal representatives of the five.
"Whilst the discussions are ongoing we are not going to make further
comment."
Officials acknowledge that the fact Habashi remains in Guantánamo
means the detention without charge of inmates at the camp will
continue to be a point of tension between London and Washington.
Amnesty International said it would seek to establish why Shaker Aamer
is to go to Saudi Arabia, Habashi would remain in detention and
another former UK resident, Ahmed Belbacha, has not been mentioned in
the reports.
Neil Durkin, Amnesty's UK spokesman said: "We've always said that
Guantánamo is a travesty of justice and that detainees should either
be given proper trials or released to safe countries."
Banna has been the subject of intense legal and political campaigning
in recent months. His Brent East MP, Sarah Teather, in February called
on the US authorities either to charge him or send him home.
Teather said she hoped the men could be back before Christmas. "Jamil
has been held without any charges being brought against him for five
years, he was cleared for release in March this year," she said. "The
US has accepted that he is not a threat and he belongs at home with
his family.
"Since the government has taken up the cause it has done everything in
its power to secure his release but it is a disgrace that it took them
four and a half years to take up the cause."
A Jordanian, Banna was on a business trip to Gambia in November 2002
when he was picked up, handed over to the Americans and flown to
Guantánamo.
The freed men
Jamil el-Banna
Banna, 45, a father of five from London, was seized by the CIA in
2002, and flown to Guantánamo after MI5 wrongly told the US that his
travelling companion was carrying bomb parts on a business trip to
Gambia. MI5 had attempted to recruit him as an informer days earlier
Omar Deghayes
Born in Libya, Deghayes, 37, came to the UK as a child after his
father was murdered. He studied law at Wolverhampton University and in
Huddersfield. His family say he has condemned terrorism. He alleges he
was by left blind in one eye after a US soldier poked his finger into it.
Abdenour Samuer
Samuer fled to the UK from Algeria and was granted asylum in 2000. He
went to Afghanistan after 9/11. He says he was captured on the
Pakistan border. He told US interrogators that in 2001 a man at
Finsbury Park mosque gave him money to go to Afghanistan
Shaker Abdur-Raheem Aamer
Aamer, 38, is a Saudi national with a British wife and four British
children living in Battersea, London. He was applying for British
citizenship when he took his family to Kabul and was seized by troops
fighting alongside US forces. He will return to his native Saudi Arabia.
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