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Brits Released From Gitmo
After 3 Years, No Charges

By Vikram Dodd
The Guardian
1-26-5
 
Four men who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay for up to three years before being returned to the UK were last night released without charge, police said.
 
They had been arrested on their return to Britain on Tuesday from Guant·namo, but were last night enjoying their first moments of freedom.
 
Moazzam Begg, from Birmingham, Feroz Abbasi, from Croydon, south London, Martin Mubanga, from Wembley, north-west London, and Richard Belmar from St John's Wood, north-west London, were all released from Paddington Green station.
 
They all had been held for almost 28 hours. Questioning of the four Britons began shortly after midday, but with the men not commenting during interview, and with the confessions they had made in Guantanamo - allegedly after torture - being inadmissible, the police had no further justification to hold them.
 
Police sources had told the Guardian that unless the men made admissions, they would have to be released.
 
The men were driven away from the top-security police station just before 9pm and taken to meet their families. They are now free to try to rebuild their lives and recover from an ordeal which is alleged to have included repeated abuses and torture by their US captors.
 
A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "Shortly before 9pm four men, arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 on January 25, were released without charge. This followed liaison between police and the Crown Prosecution Service. The men were interviewed by MPS Anti-Terrorist officers after being arrested under Section 41 of the Act which refers to the alleged involvement in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism."
 
Neil Durkin, for Amnesty International UK, said: "We've always said that they shouldn't be held a minute longer than necessary back in the UK. They have already been held for three years, and upwards of three years in some cases."
 
He added that the men had been interrogated in Guantanamo Bay and some in Afghanistan. "There is an obligation on the UK authority to listen carefully to allegations - and act on [them]."
 
Mark Oaten, the Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, said: "While it is welcome news that the police have quickly completed their inquiries, this move highlights yet again the injustice of holding these men captive for the last three years."
 
Earlier in the day further details emerged of the alleged previous treatment of the men.
 
Gareth Peirce, the British lawyer, said Mr Begg, her client, had changed for the worse since she saw him four years ago. "His face is the face of someone who has been through a severe ordeal. He looks like he has been to hell and back."
 
Mr Begg was asked by police whom he knew in the UK, what mosques he had attended and where he had been abroad.
 
Police say that they needed to question the four because of intelligence suggesting they could threated public safety.
 
Mr Begg's US lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, who saw his client in Guantanamo Bay earlier this month, said the captive had alleged persistent beatings, death threats and psychological torture first at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, then at Guantanamo.
 
The Pentagon is investigating the abuse and torture allegations after concerns were raised by the FBI.
 
In 2002, Mr Begg was allegedly subjected to a month of daily beatings and threatened with death. He is also alleged to have been told by US interrogators that he would be sent to Egypt where the "real" torture would begin. In Guantanamo he was kept in solitary confinement for 19 months.
 
The Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir John Stevens, has made it clear that no evidence from Guantanamo Bay would be admissible in court.
 
Another of the released men, Feroz Abbasi, 24, was questioned about how he came to be in Afghanistan where it is alleged he was captured by Northern Alliance forces in December 2001 while fighting for al-Qaida. Mr Abbasi's lawyer, Louise Christian, said that her client had been interviewed twice by British anti-terrorism police.
 
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1399346,00.html
 
 

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