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Mark Gobell
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Mark Gobell
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 Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:09 pm Post subject: |
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Yes. It did happen under Bliar.
The Tipton Three were released on 9.3.2004
Today's release of the Guantanamo Three is 3 years, 9 months and the 11th day of the Tipton Three's release.
Today is also 11 months and the 19th day of the year.
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TonyGosling
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 8:23 pm Post subject: |
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It is a significant event.
If you click on the links above, the story of these captives defies belief.
The BBC just announced their release with the closing statement "the US believes they are dangerous".
Which is why they set them free obviously.
It's well worth my time.
It's also, not probably worthy of mention, in case I'm accused of twisting, misrepresenting or somehow forging time but:
| Quote: | Britain seeks Guantánamo releases
Mark Tran
Tuesday August 7, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Jamil el-Banna, one of five legal UK residents held by the US. Photograph: Sarah Lee
The British government has requested the release of five former UK residents being held in Guantánamo Bay, the Foreign Office said today. |
The FCO "said today", on 7.8.7
That's 7 years, 7 months and the 7th day of the New American Century.
Or, if you prefer, 91 months and 1 week.
7.8.7 is also 1 day and 19 weeks ago . . .
Perhaps I'm the one who is making this stuff up.
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Mark Gobell
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 9:24 pm Post subject: |
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This is London
| Quote: | Guantanamo 'Brits' arrested on returning to UK after four years in terror detention
Last updated at 21:07pm on 19.12.07
Three British residents held without charge or trial at the US Guantanamo Bay detention centre for several years arrived back in the UK tonight.
Two of them were arrested shortly before they landed at Luton Airport at 7pm, police said.
Jamil el-Banna, Omar Deghayes and Abdennour Samuer arrived on board a charter jet from the camp in Cuba, the former detainees' lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, said.
Jordanian Jamil el-Banna and Algerian Abdennour Samuer were arrested on arriving in the UK
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said two of the men, whom he described as aged 34, from London, and 38, from Sussex, were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
They were being taken to a central London police station to be interviewed by detectives, he said.
The third man, aged 45, from London, was detained but not arrested under Schedule 7 Port and Border Controls within the Terrorism Act 2000 and taken to a police station in Bedfordshire.
The spokesman said: "All the men will be medically examined by a forensic medical examiner to ensure that they are fit to be detained and interviewed by police.
"As is normal practice each man will have access to a solicitor of his choice.
"Police are conducting investigations into the cases of each man on an individual basis. Their inquiries are being carried out, as they must be, strictly in accordance with UK law."
Ethiopian Binyam Mohammed,
UK resident Ethiopian Binyam Mohamed will remain at Guantanamo while Libyan Omar Deghayes has been freed
Banna, 44, has been the subject of allegations he was approached to become an MI5 informant days before he was incarcerated.
He was seized by the CIA and flown secretly to Guantanamo Bay in 2002 when he embarked on a business trip to Gambia.
An MI5 document in which an intelligence officer details a visit to Banna's home to attempt to recruit him as an informer.
Banna knew Abu Qatada, a cleric accused of being Al Qaeda's spiritual leader in Europe.
Reports said he was taken to Cuba after MI5 "wrongly" told the Americans his travelling companion was carrying bomb parts on a business trip to Gambia.
The three British residents were held without charge or trial at Guantanamo Bay
The Foreign Office confirmed that the men, who are not British citizens but have put down roots in the UK, would be arriving "imminently".
Scotland Yard said the men were on board a chartered aircraft rather than an RAF jet as used other Guantanamo internees who have returned in the past.
The plane has a normal flight crew and a doctor on board.
Officers from the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command are also on the flight as well as a uniformed escort team who are there at the request of the Foreign Office.
Although the Metropolitan Police is handling the arrival a Scotland Yard spokesman refused to confirm where they would be landing or whether it would be in London itself.
He said police were refusing to discuss the reason for this for "operational reasons".
Amani Deghayes, sister of Omar Deghayes, said: "I'm extremely relieved that Omar's ordeal is finally coming to end after over five years of suffering in Guantanamo.
"We're looking forward to spending the Eid as family together.
"Our family has always said that Omar was totally innocent - one of the hundreds of people taken to Guantanamo by the Americans for no good reason.
"At the same time, we always insisted that if there was any evidence against Omar then it was only right that he should stand trial.
"Instead he's been on the receiving end of brutal and illegal treatment.
"Our family wants to thank Amnesty International, Save Omar campaigners and others for their continued support, along with Reprieve, Birnbergs (solicitors) and other lawyers who have fought so hard to help secure Omar's release.
"Now we'll be concentrating on looking after Omar and putting all this behind us." |
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Wokeman
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| Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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| This beggars belief. They've been sent back to the UK after being held incomunicado for 4/5 years and upon arriving here, arrested "strictly under the accordance of UK law". . . .I'm lost for words, I simply do not know what to say!
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TonyGosling
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John White
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| Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 11:18 pm Post subject: |
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No doubt the State has hauled them in so as to tacitly support their detention and not make it too obvious there was b* all reason for slamming them in a hole in the first place... by nicking them, it creates the "smoke and fire" connection to keep the frightened feeling reassured, without having to actually present anythign as trifling as a reason or evidence
I predict a quiet release in the new year
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:41 am Post subject: |
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BBC
| Quote: | Last Updated: Thursday, 20 December 2007, 08:19 GMT
Spain warrant for Guantanamo man
A British resident released by the US from Guantanamo Bay has been arrested under a Spanish warrant.
Jamil El-Banna, 45, has been undergoing questioning at a Luton police station.
The police said he was being held on a European Arrest Warrant alleging terrorist-related offences, issued on behalf of the Spanish authorities.
Two other freed men, Omar Deghayes, 38, and Abdenour Samuer, 34, were arrested under the Terrorism Act on arrival and are being questioned in London.
Aircraft arrest
Mr El-Banna will appear in custody before the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on Thursday.
The three men arrived at Luton airport on Wednesday after they were held by the US at Guantanamo for four-and-a-half years.
The idea now that they want to use this evidence we've proved to be false to take them for further detention is very worrying
Another freed UK resident, Shaker Abdur-Raheem Aamer, is expected to return to his native Saudi Arabia.
A fifth UK resident, Ethiopian Binyam Mohammed, will remain at Guantanamo.
Mr Deghayes and Mr Samuer were arrested on board an aircraft shortly after it arrived from Guantanamo.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said they were being held on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
They remain in custody at Paddington Green police station in central London, with Mr Deghayes also facing possible extradition to Spain.
Fight extradition
The lawyer for the men, Clive Stafford-Smith, earlier told BBC's Newsnight that the Spanish case was based on false evidence.
He said the situation with Spain was "dismaying" and they would fight any attempt to extradite them.
"The fact that the Spanish actually were behind this wrongful detention in Guantanamo Bay is something they should be ashamed of," he said.
"The idea now that they want to use this evidence we've proved to be false to take them for further detention is very worrying."
American accusations
The Home Office will review the immigration status of the three men after agreeing their release with the US on 10 December following intensive negotiations.
The Pentagon insists that all five of the British residents are dangerous.
The Americans accuse Palestinian Mr el-Banna of being an al-Qaeda recruiter and financier, Libyan Mr Deghayes of associating with al-Qaeda, and Algerian Mr Samuer of being trained for combat in Afghanistan.
About 300 prisoners are held at Guantanamo Bay, set up at a US naval base in Cuba in early 2002 after the invasion of Afghanistan.
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Now, please read Jamil el Banna's story that started at Gatwick on 2.11.2 because he had the temerity to have a battery charger in his luggage.
Some interesting links there (now broken) to MI5's attempt to recruit him.
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 9:55 am Post subject: |
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From the Guardian's Guantanamo Timeline:
| Quote: | March 21 2005:
Claims by Iraqi citizen Bisher al-Rawi, who was arrested in Gambia with fellow British resident Jamil el-Banna, that he spied for MI5, are revealed.
He says MI5 urged him to stay friends with the radical cleric Abu Qatada, so al-Rawi could inform on him. |
| Quote: | March 16 2006:
Government lawyers admit MI5 provided information to the US about al-Rawi and el-Banna before they were seized by the CIA. |
| Quote: | July 25 2007:
MI5 was "indirectly and inadvertently" involved in the CIA rendition of two Britons - al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna - says a parliamentary intelligence and security committee. |
"indirectly and inadvertently" - we didn't even know that we had nothing to do with it.
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:16 am Post subject: |
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Guardian
| Quote: | Tortuous path out of prison for Guantánamo 3
· Secret White House talks began 18 months ago
· Campaign forced Britain to reverse refusal to help
Vikram Dodd
Thursday December 20, 2007
The Guardian
The process that led to three former Guantánamo inmates returning to Britain yesterday began more than 18 months ago and involved secret and protracted negotiations between London and Washington.
A vigorous campaign and a series of legal battles forced Britain to reverse its longstanding refusal to help the men, even though it conceded long ago that they were unlikely to pose any serious threat. Documents have shown that talks about their release were under way in June 2006.
Initially, the Blair government asked solely for the return of Bisher al-Rawi, who was apprehended by the US while on a business trip to the Gambia in 2002.
It was revealed that far from being a terrorist, Rawi had been helping MI5 keep track of a British-based terror suspect, Abu Qatada.
The Bush administration countered by making an offer to Britain: take all the British residents back.
Britain refused, with senior UK officials saying the men had no legal right to return. They also balked at the restrictions demanded by the American authorities.
Documents obtained by the Guardian show that the US wanted the detainees to be kept under 24-hour surveillance if set free - restrictions dismissed by Britain as unnecessary and unworkable.
The US has accused all of them of terrorist involvement, but Britain says there is no intelligence to warrant the measures Washington wants.
In the documents William Nye, then the director of counter-terrorism and intelligence at the Home Office, wrote: "They do not pose a sufficient threat ... the US administration envisages measures such that the returnees cannot legally leave the UK, engage with known extremists or engage in support, promote, plan or advocate extremist or violent activity, and further have the effect of ensuring that the British authorities would be certain to know immediately of any attempt to engage in any such activity."
Over the following months the Bush administration dropped its demands, and accepted that Britain would impose less stringent security arrangements than Washington initially had demanded. In August the government decided to request the return of five UK residents, on the eve of a court case brought by Jamil el-Banna's lawyers.
They were seeking a court order to allow him back into the UK, citing an American assessment from May which conceded that he no longer posed a security threat. The government was poised to lose the case and finally agreed to ask for his return to the UK.
The men's incarceration and allegations that they were being tortured caused their families deep distress.
In a suburban house in north London, four-year-old Maryam el-Banna's only knowledge of her father, Jamil, are photographs. He was incarcerated in Guantánamo before she was born.
Banna's health has suffered during his five years in US detention and his wife has campaigned for his release while bringing up four children. Omar Deghayes, another one of those freed, claims to have seen US guards kill people, prisoners being partially drowned, and the Qur'an thrown into a toilet by a US guard.
In total four British residents have been returned from the UK to Guantánamo; the three who arrived yesterday and Rawi, who was released earlier this year. Nine other British citizens were held and all freed by February 2005 after years of incarceration. None of the British citizens or residents werewas ever charged or convicted of any offence despite their detention by the US.
A fourth British resident, Binyam Mohamed, remains in Guantánamo and alleges he was taken by the CIA to Morocco where he was tortured by having his penis cut with a razor blade. |
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 10:45 am Post subject: |
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Independent
| Quote: | 20 December 2007 10:43
Lawyer condemns 'lies' over Guantanamo detainees' release
By Nicola Boden, PA
Published: 20 December 2007
The lawyer for three British residents arrested hours after returning to the UK from the US Guantanamo Bay detention centre today condemned the Government for "lying" about their release.
Clive Stafford Smith, who is acting for all three men, described the Government's actions since they returned to British soil as " reprehensible".
Omar Deghayes, 38, Abdennour Samuer, 34, and Jamil el-Banna, 45, were all released from the controversial camp in Cuba yesterday after years of being held without charge or trial.
They arrived back in the UK on board a charter jet last night but both Mr Deghayes and Mr Samuer were arrested immediately, and Mr el-Banna also taken into custody early this morning.
Mr Stafford Smith said: "These guys have been kicked so many times. They have been tortured. To do this when there are so close to home and their families, I think, is reprehensible.
"It would have been fine if that was what they (the Government) had told us was going to happen. They knew it was going to happen. I have no problem with them questioning my clients but they lied."
He added: "Jamil el-Banna was told by an official yesterday that he would be at home with his children for the Festival of Eid.
"Five children are sitting in that house waiting, one of whom has never seen their father. It is absolutely outrageous."
Mr Stafford Smith said Mr el-Banna and Mr Deghayes were both due in court later today, but that Mr Samuer would be released at some point during the day.
Both Mr el-Banna and Mr Deghayes were due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates' Court in central London, where protesters against their detention were expected.
Mr el-Banna's son Anas, 11, and former Guantanamo detainees including Moazzem Begg and Martin Mubanga will be among those at the demonstration, demanding the men's immediate release.
Mr el-Banna was detained under port and border controls after the flight landed at Luton last night.
He was arrested this morning after being taken for questioning at a police station in Bedfordshire.
Scotland Yard said its Extradition Unit had arrested a 45-year-old man on a European Arrest Warrant alleging terrorist-related offences, issued on behalf of the Spanish authorities.
The two other men were arrested under the Terrorism Act 2000 and taken to Paddington Green police station in London for questioning.
A Metropolitan Police spokesman said the two men were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
He said: "Police are conducting investigations into the cases of each man on an individual basis.
"Their inquiries are being carried out, as they must be, strictly in accordance with UK law."
Mr el-Banna could now face lengthy court hearings and a possible trial in Spain if the extradition goes ahead, but Mr Stafford Smith has vowed to fight any such request.
Fellow lawyers and campaigners have also condemned the arrests of the detainees on their return to Britain.
Respected human rights lawyer, Gareth Peirce, who represents some of the former detainees, said: "For five years Britain has denied that the US achieved the extraordinary rendition, torture and unlawful detention of Jamil el-Banna with its assistance and encouragement, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
"Now, on arrival in the country that is his home, Jamil el-Banna - exonerated entirely by the Americans - is told that the UK is now actively assisting another government to snatch him once again without even the chance of seeing his wife and children - this time through the device of a fast track extradition request from Spain.
"How unbelievable that 1,000 hours of interrogation in Guantanamo managed to overlook the claims made by the Spanish and how unbelievable that for five years the Spanish overlooked his presence in Guantanamo and failed to achieve his extradition from the USA.
"Enough is enough. These men must be immediately released."
A spokesman for the former Guantanamo detainees said: "We are shocked that after the horrific ordeal suffered by these men in Guantanamo, once again they are facing further persecution.
"It is particularly sad that at this time of year, when we gather with our families, these innocent men, who should be at home with their wives and young children, after spending five years in a illegal prison camp, will face the possibility of spending another Christmas behind bars.
"They are innocent and should be released immediately."
Unlike nine other men earlier sent back to the UK from the camp, the three are not full British citizens but the Government had been under pressure to demand their return.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced in August that the UK had formally requested the release of a total of five British residents held at the camp.
In addition to the three men now back in Britain, this included Shaker Aamer - who is said to have requested to go to Saudi Arabia - and Binyam Mohammed, who remains at Guantanamo.
Another British resident, Bisher al-Rawi, was sent back earlier this year.
Mr el-Banna, a Palestinian UK resident, was picked up in November 2002 while on a business trip to Gambia alongside Mr al-Rawi.
The pair are believed to have been taken first to Afghanistan under a process of rendition before arriving at Guantanamo.
Mr Deghayes is said to have left Libya in 1986 after his father, a trade unionist, was killed.
He settled at Saltdean near Brighton as a refugee but later travelled widely, including to Afghanistan where he lived under the Taliban - attempting to export organic fruit, according to supporters.
He was arrested in Pakistan after leaving Afghanistan because of the US-led bombing after September 11.
Mr Samuer is said to be an Algerian army deserter who fled to the UK in 1999 and lived in Harrow after being granted asylum.
But he left for Afghanistan and was arrested on the border with Pakistan after the US-led airstrikes. |
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Thermate911
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:03 pm Post subject: |
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So let me get this straight.
These people have already spent 6 years incarcerated contrary to international law, with no charges being brought against them.
They are now 're-incarcerated' in the UK on what charges?
Is Magna Carta quite dead and buried? Would seem so. Where is the outcry? Where is the justice?
Kidnapped for 6 years and the UK authorities just do not have the inclination (or balls?) to let them free to become media-vulture-meat, out of which may come far too much truth for the plutarchy to manage?
The revolution is being podcast... What else is left?
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andyb
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 1:10 pm Post subject: |
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Let's not forget that MI5 have had access to these guys in Gitmo so there is no reason for them to question them now
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 2:19 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Sabah el-Banna
Profile
Sabah el-Banna
Sabah el-Banna is the wife of Jamil el-Banna, who has been detained at Guantánamo Bay since March 2003
Jamil el-Banna Briefing, from Sarah Teather's office
Who is he?
Jamil is a man with Jordanian citizenship and who is Palestinian by birth (dob: 28/5/68 ). He arrived in the UK in February 1994 and was given refugee status by the Home Office in September 2000.
Jamil’s family lives in Dollis Hill, London. His wife is Sabah (dob: 8/12/64), and his children are: Anas (9, dob: 17/12/96), Mohamed (8, dob: 22/12/97), Abdulrahman (6, dob: 5/10/99), Badeeah (5, dob: 11/2/2001), Mariam (3, dob: 13/4/2003).
Sabah is a foreign national (Palestinian/Jordanian, like Jamil) but all the children are British and go to a local school. Unrelated to their father’s situation, Sarah Teather, their MP, has presented two of them with ‘Good Citizenship’ awards at their schools in recent months and a third has also won the award.
What has happened to Jamil?
He has been ‘detained’ by the US Government and is currently in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where he has been held since March 2003.
Jamil is one of around nine non-national British residents currently being held in Guantanamo Bay.
How did this happen?
Jamil el-Banna is friends with a man called Bisher al-Rawi. They both prayed at the same mosque and lent a helping hand in the local Arab community. Bisher persuaded Jamil to come to the Gambia to set up a business scheme developed by Bisher’s brother, Wahab. The idea was to take advantage of the peanuts that grew plentifully there, and offer a mobile peanut processing plant that could turn the crop into oil. Wahab sank £250,000 into the programme, expecting to reap handsome profits.
On 2 November 2002, they set off on a business trip to the Gambia. They were arrested and questioned for some days at Gatwick for carrying a ‘suspicious device’. Their lawyer, Gareth Peirce, went to the Argos catalogue store and bought an identical “weapon” – proving that it was a battery charger. Two MI5 agents then reassured Jamil and Bisher that they had nothing to worry about going to the Gambia.
The moment they arrived at Banjul airport in Gambia on 8 November 2002, they were arrested. The men were initially questioned by the Gambian National Intelligence Agency before being handed over to CIA agents. Far from being “on the battlefield”, they were further from Kabul than London is. According to the Gambian authorities, the arrest was made at the request of the British Government. Jamil reports how a U.S. interrogator said, “Why are you angry at America? It is your Government, Britain, the MI5, who called the CIA and told them that you and Bisher were in Gambia and to come and get you. Britain gave everything to us. Britain sold you out to the CIA.” Wahab was also held for 27 days, but then released with no subsequent charges.
The two men were held in total isolation in a “Dark Prison” for 2 weeks. It was so dark that Jamil couldn’t see his fingers. During this time he was punched, dragged along the floor and kicked. It was winter, but Jamil only had a t-shirt, no shorts and no blanket.
In late December 2002, the Jamil and Bisher were flown out of Gambia to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan. This action itself was illegal as there were habeus corpus proceedings pending in the Gambian courts at the time. This ‘rendition’ into US custody was therefore a breach of Gambian and international law. It has been alleged that the Gambian authorities were pressured by the US into co-operating. It was only at this time when Jamil’s wife first heard from him, through the ICRC. He asked her how her pregnancy was going and to pray for his safe return. He was then flown to Cuba.
Why was Jamil arrested, detained, ‘rendered’ and then put into Guantanamo Bay?
The reasons for Jamil’s detention remain unclear. It seems likely that he came under suspicion because he was acquainted with the Islamist cleric Abu-Qatada, a Jordanian militant who has been convicted for his activities in his own country, and who has previously been the subject of both imprisonment in Belmarsh under anti-terror legislation and a control order. He is currently in custody as the Government attempts to arrange his extradition to Jordan.
Jamil had previously lived in Pakistan where he was involved with a charitable organisation that cared for those orphaned as a result of the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan. The US has targeted some charities as having terrorist links. It is possible that one of them is the one that Jamil worked for.
Clearly, had there been any credible intelligence that he was involved in any terrorist activity in the UK, then he could have been charged under anti-terror legislation. |
Guardian CIF
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 2:35 pm Post subject: |
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Washington Post
| Quote: | Courted as Spies, Held as Combatants
British Residents Enlisted by MI5 After Sept. 11 Languish at Guantanamo
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, April 2, 2006; A01
LONDON -- As they tried to board a flight at Gatwick Airport in November 2002, three Arab residents of Britain were pulled aside by security agents. Police had questions about their luggage and ties to a radical Islamic cleric. After four days in custody, the men were cleared of suspicion and resumed their trip.
But British intelligence officials weren't ready to drop their interest in the men. Before the three flew out of the country, the MI5 security service sent cables to a "foreign intelligence agency," according to court testimony and newly declassified MI5 documents, calling the men Islamic extremists and disclosing their destination: Gambia, a tiny West African country.
When they arrived on Nov. 8, they were detained by Gambian and U.S. intelligence operatives, who interrogated them again, this time for a month, British and U.S. documents show. Then two of the men, Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna, disappeared into the netherworld of the U.S. government's battle against terrorism, taken first to a prison in Afghanistan, then to the Naval detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The primary purpose of this elaborate operation, documents and interviews suggest, was not to neutralize a pair of potential terrorists -- authorities have offered no evidence that they were planning attacks -- but to turn them into informers.
U.S. and British efforts to infiltrate Britain's Islamic underground went into high gear after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the documents show. The two men, acquaintances of the radical cleric Abu Qatada, were singled out by MI5 for threats, cajoling and offers of cash and protection if they would channel information. Although one of them offered some assistance, MI5 wanted more.
Rawi, 38, and Banna, 43, remain at Guantanamo. They have told their attorneys that U.S. and British intelligence operatives have visited them repeatedly there and in Afghanistan, renewing demands that they inform, offering them freedom and money in exchange. Both men say they have refused.
A review of hundreds of pages of documents recently released by the U.S. Department of Defense, a British court and the men's attorneys illustrates how the U.S., British and Gambian governments worked together in an operation that circumvented their judicial systems and, through a process known as extraordinary rendition, had two men incarcerated who had not been charged with breaking any law.
George Brent Mickum IV, a Washington lawyer who represents both men, acknowledged that they were friends of Abu Qatada. But he said neither shared the cleric's radical beliefs nor represented a security risk to the United States.
He said he was still trying to understand why British intelligence would engineer their seizure. "Either it was an attempt to put these guys at risk and to use them to find evidence that would implicate Abu Qatada," he said, "or it was an attempt to bring them within the closer control of MI5."
Spokesmen for the Pentagon, the CIA and the U.S. Embassy in Banjul, the Gambian capital, declined to comment for this article. MI5 has a policy of not commenting to the media.
The British Foreign Office released a statement last week denying complicity by the British government: "The United Kingdom did not request the detention of the claimants in the Gambia and did not play any role in their transfer to Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay."
A Foreign Office spokeswoman said she could not answer questions because of a pending lawsuit seeking to force the British government to intercede on the men's behalf. On March 22, the government said it would ask for Rawi's release; its previous position was that it could not intercede for a non-British citizen.
The case has caused a political uproar in Britain. Critics say the documents show the British government has helped place people in Guantanamo, despite its claims that the prison is strictly a U.S. operation.
A parliamentary committee is investigating. "The key issue that certainly concerns me is whether our government, the British government, was involved in something that I would consider to be unlawful," said Andrew Tyrie, the committee chairman. "I don't want to live in a country that could be complicit in such abuses."
Rawi came to Britain as a teenager in 1984 with his family from Iraq, where his father had been tortured by Saddam Hussein's secret police, family members said in interviews. He attended British schools but was a self-described poor student who didn't need to find a job because his family was wealthy. He retained his Iraqi citizenship in hopes of reclaiming confiscated family property if Hussein's government ever fell.
One day after the Sept. 11 attacks, two MI5 agents knocked on the door of the house where he lived with his sister and her husband, family members said. The agents asked about Qatada, whom he knew from the mosque. "He was completely gobsmacked," said Nomi Janjua, his brother-in-law. "He said, 'What? Secret services?' I started laughing because we couldn't believe it."
Rawi agreed to become an unpaid informer, according to the family and his attorneys, a claim that the British government has acknowledged in court without elaborating. Although he kept details of his talks with MI5 to himself, British agents quickly became a presence at the family's house. They telephoned so often that his relatives complained, forcing MI5 to give him a mobile phone and meet him elsewhere.
Sometimes the contacts were unfriendly, family members recalled. Once, when he took his mother to an airport, agents pulled him aside for a long interrogation.
MI5 documents show that some agents came to have reservations about whether he was carrying out their orders. He tried to end the relationship in the summer of 2002, upsetting his handlers.
Banna, a Palestinian with Jordanian citizenship, came with his wife to London in 1994 from Pakistan. He had worked in an orphanage in Peshawar, where he met Qatada, a fellow Jordanian.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Banna also received a visit from two intelligence agents, one British and one American, according to his wife, Sabah. The agents inquired about Qatada. He resisted their pressure to become an informer, she said, but they kept it up.
In late 2002, Banna and Rawi made plans to go to Gambia. The purpose of the trip, they have said, was to help Rawi's brother, Wahab, set up a peanut-oil processing plant. In an interview, Wahab al-Rawi said he had invested $225,000 in the venture and had recruited his brother, Banna, and two other friends as partners.
On Oct. 31, 2002, as Banna was packing for the trip, an M15 agent called at his London home and pressed him again to infiltrate extremist circles on behalf of British intelligence, either domestically or in a Muslim country.
"He did not give any hint of willingness to cooperate with us," the unnamed MI5 agent wrote in a report. "I returned to the choice which he could make; he could either continue as at present, with the risks that entailed, or he could start a new life with a new identity. . . . It was quite possible that he could find himself swept up in a further round of detentions."
In an interview, Sabah el-Banna said she didn't recall details of the conversation except that the agents assured Banna that he could fly to Africa. "They said, 'No, no -- go ahead. Good luck in your business." MI5 records confirm that Banna was given clearance to go.
The detention at Gatwick delayed the three travelers' arrival in Gambia by seven days. It has led to speculation by the men's attorneys and families that the delay gave the CIA time to position operatives in Gambia.
On Nov. 8, Wahab al-Rawi, who was already in Gambia, and a business partner drove to the Banjul airport to meet the travellers. There, all five men were taken into custody.
Gambian officials initially said there was a visa problem. But the men were soon locked up and moved to hidden locations and safe houses around the capital. American spies acted as if they were in charge, Wahab al-Rawi said. A brawny man who identified himself as Lee and said he was from the U.S. Embassy spent days questioning the men. He wanted to know about their ties to Qatada, whether the peanut business was a front for terrorist activities and whether they hated Americans.
Wahab al-Rawi said he refused to cooperate at first, demanding that he be allowed to contact a lawyer and the British Embassy. "Lee said, 'Who do you think asked us to arrest you? Where do you think this information came from, the questions we are asking you?' " Wahab al-Rawi said.
After four weeks, Wahab al-Rawi and one of the business partners -- both British citizens -- were released and put on a flight back to London. A third partner, a Gambian citizen, also was let go. But Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna were flown to Afghanistan.
They have given their attorneys this account of their arrival there: They were taken to a prison near Kabul, the capital, and kept in the darkness for two weeks, with loudspeakers blaring music around the clock. Later they were transferred to a prison at Bagram air base.
Rawi and Banna said they were asked by CIA operatives in Afghanistan whether they would serve as informants, said Mickum, their attorney. Banna was offered increasing sums of money and a U.S. passport to work for the CIA, but refused, Mickum said.
A few weeks later, they were flown to Guantanamo Bay. On March 12, 2003, Rawi wrote a sardonic letter to his family in London.
"Dear Mum and family," it read. "I'm writing to you from the seaside resort of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. After winning first prize in a competition, I was whisked to this nice resort with all expenses paid (I did not need to spend a penny). . . . Everyone is very nice, the neighbors are very well-mannered, the food is best class, plenty of fun."
Rawi told his lawyer he was visited in Guantanamo at least six times by MI5 officials, including some of the same agents who had served as his handlers in London. They apologized for the turn of events, but asked whether he would still be willing to work for the agency if they could secure his release.
"He asked me a few questions about a few people here" in Guantanamo, Rawi said of one MI5 agent, according to a transcript of a U.S. military tribunal hearing. "He asked me, if I were released, where would I like to go? I mentioned a few places; I told him he could buy me a ticket to the moon."
In September 2004, the two were brought before tribunals that would determine whether they could be formally classified as "enemy combatants." The primary evidence against them: they knew Abu Qatada, and had wired money on his behalf to Jordan.
They were also accused of carrying a suspicious electronic device in their luggage to Gambia; British police who stopped them at Gatwick determined it was a battery charger, police reports show.
In testimony during the hearings, the detainees admitted knowing Qatada and helping him transfer the funds, which they said went to a charity. They said MI5 had been aware of all their activities and had encouraged them to interact with Qatada. They also pointed out that British police had them in custody just prior to their trip to Gambia and could have pressed charges if they were suspected of illegal acts.
"We were kidnapped in Gambia, not arrested," Banna said, according to a transcript of his hearing. "I don't even know what I have done. . . . If I were a danger to anyone, Britain would have put me in jail."
The tribunals ruled that both men should be classified as enemy combatants.
Researcher Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report. |
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 2:59 pm Post subject: |
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Scotland Against Criminalising Communities (PDF)
| Quote: | SACC briefing www.sacc.org.uk Page 16
The Cases of Bisher Al-Rawi and Jamil El-Banna
Excerpted from the report:
Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member States
by Mr Dick Marty
for the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe AS/Jur (2006) 16 Part II
7 June 2006
(re-formatted and footnotes etc renumbered for consistency with this briefing)
Read the full report at http://tinyurl.com/ynhyo6
This case, which concerns two British permanent residents arrested in Gambia in November 2002 and transferred first to Afghanistan and from there to Guantanamo (where they still are) is an example of (ill-conceived) cooperation between the services of a European country (the British MI5) and the CIA in abducting persons against whom there is no evidence enabling them to be kept in prison lawfully, and whose principal crime is to be on social terms with a leading Islamist against whom the authorities have no evidence either – namely Abu Qatada.
The information made public to date [1] shows that the abduction of Messrs Al-Rawi and El-Banna was indeed motivated by information – partly erroneous – supplied by MI5.
Bisher Al-Rawi and Jamil El-Banna were arrested in Gambia on 8 November 2002. They intended to join Mr Al-Rawi’s brother Wahab, a British citizen, and help him set up a mobile peanut processing plant. The British authorities were well aware of this business trip [2].
On 1 November, Messrs Al-Rawi and El-Banna left on their trip, but did not get very far. At Gatwick airport they were arrested by reason of a suspect item in Mr Al-Rawi’s hand luggage.
On the same day, a first telegram from MI5 informed the CIA that the two men had been arrested under the 2000 anti-terrorist act.
That telegram contained false information, including the statement that Mr Al-Rawi was an Islamist extremist, and that the search of his luggage had revealed that he was carrying a sort of improvised electronic device which could be used, according to preliminary investigations, as a component of a home-made bomb [3].
The two men spent 48 hours in police custody, until the police decided that the “suspicious device” was nothing other than a battery charger on sale in several electronic goods shops (Dixons, Argos, Maplins). Mr Al-Rawi explained this when he was arrested, but it had to be checked. The conclusion to the charger episode – that it was indeed a ’harmless device’ – was communicated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by MI5 in a telegram of 11 November 2002.
Unfortunately, there is no evidence that this information was ever conveyed to the CIA. The allegations concerning this ’device’ reappeared in their ’trial’ before the CSRT (Combatant Status Review Tribunal) [4] as ’evidence’ that they were ’enemy combatants’.
Messrs Al-Rawi and El-Banna returned home on 4 November 2002 and reorganised their trip to Gambia for 8 November. Meanwhile, several telegrams were sent by MI5 to the Americans concerning the two men, informing them that they knew Abu Qatada and that Mr El-Banna was the latter’s ’financier’. It is true that the two men knew Abu Qatada [5].
On the other hand, according to the lawyers, Mr Al-Rawi had helped MI5 to prepare the non-violent arrest of Abu Qatada, and British agents had even thanked him for doing so [6].
On 8 November 2002, the day when the two men flew to Gambia, MI5 sent another telegram giving the flight details, including the departure of the delayed flight and the estimated arrival time. The telegram states that “this message should be read in the light of earlier communications”. In addition, the telegram of 8 November does not mention, as the earlier telegrams do, that this information “must not be used as the basis of overt, covert or executive action”.
At Banjul airport, Al-Rawi and El-Banna, accompanied by a collaborator, Mr El Janoudi, met Bisher Al-Rawi’s brother Wahab, who had gone to Gambia one week before the others, and all four were arrested by Gambian agents. They were taken to a house outside Banjul. Mr Janoudi managed to telephone his wife in London, and another brother of Mr Al-Rawi, Numann, went to see his MP, Edward Davey, who informed the Foreign Ministry.
During the following days, according to Wahab’s account, American agents were very present, but the detainees never saw a British official despite the fact that they asked to see a consular representative. Wahab stated at the APPG hearing that the CIA and Gambian officials repeatedly alluded to the fact that “it is the British who have told us to arrest you”.
Mr El-Banna says he has continually been told the same thing during his subsequent detention at Guantanamo Bay:
“My interrogator asked me ‘Why are you so angry at America? It is your Government, Britain, the MI5, who called the CIA and told them that you and Bisher were in The Gambia and to come and get you. Britain gave everything to us. Britain sold you out to the CIA” [7]
On 5 December 2002, after 27 days, Wahab was released and returned to the United Kingdom. Some days afterwards, on a Sunday, Bisher Al-Rawi and Jamil El-Banna were flown to Afghanistan in a military jet with over 40 seats. There were at least 7 or 8 American agents on board, including a woman doctor. Through their lawyers, the two men gave a detailed account of their degrading and humiliating treatment many details of which echo the treatment suffered by other victims of ’renditions’ [8].
At Kabul, they were taken in less than 15 minutes to the prison identified as the ’Dark Prison’. The description of the inhuman detention conditions in this prison [9], which is an important link in the CIA ’spider’s web’, corresponds in many details to that given by other victims of ’renditions’ who went there. After two weeks in this sinister prison, the two men were transferred to Bagram by helicopter. At Bagram they were imprisoned and ill-treated for a further two months. The American interrogators allegedly offered Mr El-Banna large sums of money in exchange for false witness against Abu Qatada.
When these offers failed to produce the expected result, the interrogators allegedly threatened to send him back for a year to the ’Dark Prison’, followed by 5 or 10 years in Cuba, and made shameful threats against his family living in London [10].
Finally, the two men were transported to Guantanamo, where they were again subject to inhuman treatment. Mr Al-Rawi says he received many visits from MI5 agents, the first of them in early autumn 2003, and that he was interrogated by ten or so different CIA agents. One of the MI5 agents, he says, even apologised to him.
In January 2004, two British agents (“Martin” and “Mathew”) asked him whether he would be willing to work for MI5 again. Mr Al-Rawi replied that he would, provided that this would serve the cause of peace. Several months later, a certain “Alex” with whom Mr Al-Rawi had worked in London came to see him at Guantanamo, accompanied by an attractive female agent. However, at the time of his “trial” before the CSRT the British authorities refused to send to Guantanamo the witnesses he named or simply to confirm his links with MI5, thereby condemning him to continuous detention – detention which continues to this day, having lasted almost four years in all.
The families of Messrs Al-Rawi and El-Banna and their lawyers at the London firm Birnberg, Peirce & Partners brought an action to oblige the British government to make repre the United States through diplomatic channels in order to secure the release and repatriation of the two men as soon as possible. According to the latest information, the British government has acted along those lines with regard to Mr Al-Rawi, but not with regard to Mr El-Banna. The judgment at first instance, given in May 2006, dismissed the families’ complaints.
In view of these highly disturbing facts, I find that the British authorities must shed light on this case in full. I welcome the fact that our colleague Andrew Tyrie has devoted much energy to this matter in order for truth to be established in this disturbing case. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, even if it has no recognised legal obligation, must make good the consequences of the apparently very imprecise communication between MI5 and the American services. There is indeed little doubt that the arrest of the two men was largely triggered or at least influenced by the messages of November 2002, only part of which (the afore-mentioned telegrams) is public knowledge.
Note from SACC
Jamil El-Banna is from Jordan. He was granted refugee status in the UK in 2000 seeking sanctuary from persecution.
Bisher Al-Rawi is from Iraq His family fled Iraq as exiles some twenty-five years ago. His late father, Dr. al-Rawi, was a prominent business man who was detained under Saddam's Hussain's regime and tortured by the secret police. The family eventually settled in the UK. All of the family members are British citizens with the exception of Bisher; it was decided that, as the youngest member of the family, he should retain his Iraqi citizenship in case they were ever able to make a claim, in future, on their property and assets which had been seized by the Ba'athist regime.
Source: www.cageprisoners.com
[1] I wish to thank in particular my British colleague Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the House of Commons All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on renditions, who helped to arrange for two members of our committee secretariat to attend an APPG hearing of the brother, wife and lawyers of Mr Al-Rawi and Mr El-Banna; I also thank the two men’s American and British lawyers, Mr Brent Mickum and Ms Gareth Peirce, along with Clive Stafford-Smith, the legal director of REPRIEVE, for the detailed information they provided for my inquiries.
[2] Mr El-Banna informed his lawyer that two MI5 agents had come to his home and told him that they knew all about his planned trip. In reply to his question as to whether everything was in order, they said yes and wished him good luck. Mr El-Banna’s wife confirmed this visit at the APPG hearing on 28 March 2006.
[3] Telegram of 1 November 2002, made public on 27 March 2006, with other telegrams dated 4, 8 and 11 November and 6 December 2002 ; these documents are normally classified secret, but came into the public domain after being cited on 22 and 23 March 2006 at a public hearing in the Queens Bench Division of the High Court in London, before Lord Justice Latham and Mr Justice Tugendhat. The telegrams were also the subject of the APPG hearing on 27 March 2006. It is clear to the lawyers that not everything is said in the telegrams, which moreover refer to other communications, including telephone calls.
[4] See US Department of Defense, unclassified Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) transcripts disclosed in the matter of El-Banna et al v. Bush, in the US District Court of Columbia (copies of all transcripts on file with the Rapporteur), October 2004.
[5] At the APPG hearing on 27 March 2006, Mr El-Banna’s wife explained that their “social” relations derived from the fact that the three men had family ties with Jordan.
[6] Al-Rawi’s cooperation with MI5 is said also to be the reason for several visits by MI5 agents to Guantanamo. The lawyers presented details of these conversations in public as recounted by their clients (copy in file). MI5 has not officially recognised this cooperation, which Al-Rawi also claimed in his depositions to the CSRT.
[7] See Jamil El-Banna, statement made to his lawyer during an interview at Guantanamo Bay (contained in unclassified attorney notes), submitted to the High Court of Justice in Case No. 2005/10470/05 through the Witness Statement of Clive Stafford Smith (hereinafter “El-Banna statement to lawyer”), at page 40.
[8] They were dressed in diapers, wore hoods without eye-holes, had their ears blocked up, their legs shackled and their hands painfully handcuffed behind their backs, and were denied access to toilets.
[9] « Diabolical » loud music round the clock, total absence of light, rotten food, no possibility to wash or use a toilet, uncomfortable handcuffing and leg shackling, cold cell, inadequate clothing, prisoners frequently beaten and trampled on.
[10] I prefer not to quote this extremely upsetting testimony.
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | 'Guantanamo Briton released on bail'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/guantanamo/story/0,,2230223,00.html
A British resident freed from Guantánamo Bay yesterday has been released on bail after appearing in court today under a Spanish extradition warrant.
Jamil el-Banna, 45, a Palestinan with Jordian citizenship, is now expected to spend the festival of Eid with his family in London after being granted bail of £50,000. He was still in court this afternoon pending arrival of the surety. He had been held in Guantánamo Bay for four and half years without charge. He will face a full extradition hearing in January. El-Banna appeared at City of Westminster magistrates' court, where he spoke to confirm his name, date of birth and address in Dollis Hill in north-west London.
He also glanced to the public gallery where many of his family and supporters were sitting.
The court heard that the Spanish warrant for his arrest relates to an accusation that he was a member of a Spanish cell of al-Qaida called the Islamic Alliance.
It was claimed he helped recruit people into terrorist training camps in Afghanistan and Indonesia in order ultimately to fight jihad, and distributed terrorist propaganda.
The court also heard that he was a Pakistani national who first came to Britain on a false passport before applying for asylum and that he was ultimately given indefinite leave to remain in the country.
El-Banna, Omar Deghayes, 38, and Abdennour Samuer, 34, were all released from Guantánamo Bay yesterday after almost five years of being held without charge or trial.
They arrived back in the UK last night when both Deghayes and Samuer were arrested immediately.
Samuer is expected to released later today.
Last night the men's lawyer Clive Stafford Smith said he had encouraged a Spanish extradition request in 2005 as a means of extracting them from Guantánamo but Madrid had not pursued it.
But in 2003 the Spanish Judge, Baltasar Garzón, who specialises in terrorist cases, called for the indictment of el-Banna and Deghayes as part of an investigation of an alleged al-Qaida cell in Spain.
Garzón said they are suspected of links to Imad Yarkas, the alleged head of an al-Qaida cell in Spain that was broken up in 2001.
Yarkas was acquitted at a 2005 trial of helping plot the September 11 terror attacks. But he was convicted of a lesser terrorism charge and is serving a 12-year prison term in Spain.
Earlier Stafford Smith accused the government of dishonesty in its treatment of the three since they returned.
"I have no problem with them questioning my clients but they [the government] lied."
He added: "Jamil el-Banna was told by an official yesterday that he would be at home with his children for the Festival of Eid. Five children are sitting in that house waiting, one of whom has never seen their father. It is absolutely outrageous."
Stafford Smith said el-Banna and Deghayes were both due in court today, but that Samuer would be released at some point during the day.
El-Banna could now face lengthy court hearings and a possible trial in Spain if the extradition goes ahead, but Stafford Smith has vowed to fight any such request.
Fellow lawyers and campaigners have also condemned the arrests of the detainees on their return to Britain.
The human rights lawyer, Gareth Peirce, who represents some of the former detainees, said: "For five years Britain has denied that the US achieved the extraordinary rendition, torture and unlawful detention of Jamil el-Banna with its assistance and encouragement, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
"Now, on arrival in the country that is his home, Jamil el-Banna - exonerated entirely by the Americans - is told that the UK is now actively assisting another government to snatch him once again without even the chance of seeing his wife and children - this time through the device of a fast track extradition request from Spain. Enough is enough. These men must be immediately released." |
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Straw to demand release of 'MI5 man' in Guantanamo after U-turn
By Robert Verkaik, Legal Affairs Correspondent
Published: 23 March 2006
In a foreign policy U-turn, Jack Straw has agreed to intervene in the case of a British resident who has been held in Guantanamo Bay for the past three years.
The concession emerged during a court hearing yesterday after lawyers had alleged that the Iraqi-born businessman, who has lived in Britain since 1985, was an MI5 informer.
Until yesterday Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, had said that the British government would not make any representations on behalf of American prisoners who were not British citizens.
The Government maintains that - as foreign nationals - Bisher al-Rawi, Jamil el-Banna and Omar Deghayes have no legal right to the assistance they seek.
But the judges heard yesterday that the Foreign Office had conceded that representations would be made to the US authorities for the release of Mr al-Rawi because of the particular circumstances of his case.
His lawyers said afterwards that the decision to intervene was only an expedient way of avoiding the publication of sensitive information about MI5's relationship with Mr al-Rawi.
Bisher al-Rawi, 37, and his Jordanian business partner Mr el-Banna, who was granted refugee status in 2000, were detained three years ago in Gambia.
According to statements before the court, they were alleged to have been associated with al-Qa'ida through a connection with the radical Muslim cleric Abu Qatada.
Mr al-Rawi, who has a wife and five children living in the UK, has always maintained he had contact with Abu Qatada that was "expressly approved and encouraged by British intelligence", to whom he supplied information about the cleric.
He said representatives of security services had assured him that, should he run into trouble, they would intervene and assist him.
Yesterday, Timothy Otty, appearing for the detainees, told the High Court he would not be alleging that the British Government was "knowingly complicit" in the arrest and the detention of the two men. But, he said, documents attached to a statement made by a security service official, referred to as "witness A", established there had been "communications" between the British and US security services, relating to the two men prior to their arrest .
Mr Otty said: "Viewed objectively, and given the nature of these communications, it was foreseeable detention would occur. We will certainly be contending there has been real injustice and there is a causal link on the part of those acting for the UK in that injustice."
Reprieve, the human rights group that has acted for Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna in the US courts, believes the implication of yesterday's decision is clear.
Zachary Katznelson, senior counsel at Reprieve, said: "It's high time that the British government recognised their responsibilities to Bisher al-Rawi. He's always maintained, and the Government has never denied, that he was helping MI5 by acting as a go-between with Abu Qatada.
"That's his only connection and that is why he was detained - because he chose to help British intelligence."
The judges were told yesterday that there is now "compelling evidence" that the three British residents have been "severely tortured and suffered inhuman and degrading treatment."
The men also remained exposed to a "real risk" of further ill treatment at the detention facility in Cuba.
Now that Mr al-Rawi was likely to have a release request made on his behalf, it did not seem too much to ask, against that background, that all three British residents at Guantanamo Bay should receive assistance from the Foreign Office, argued Mr Otty yesterday.
The hearing continues. |
Jack of all trades, master of none, finally and graciously agrees to intervene on 22.3.2006
The Guantanamo Three are released on 16.12.2007, 91 weeks and 1 day later.
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 7:17 pm Post subject: |
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Before and after.
Two pictures of Jamil el-Banna.
Before his arrest in the Gambia November 2002 and today, after his release on bail in London.
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:26 pm Post subject: |
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| Mark Gobell wrote: | Before and after.
Two pictures of Jamil el-Banna.
Before his arrest in the Gambia November 2002 and today, after his release on bail in London. |
Respect, Mark. Here are the images.
That isn't Michael Redgrave playing King Lear.
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Thu Dec 20, 2007 8:47 pm Post subject: |
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Cheers Numeral.
Sickening. Just sickening.
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Mark Gobell
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| Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 9:05 am Post subject: |
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Guardian
| Quote: | Family reunions for Guantánamo three, but two could be deported to Spain
· Pair accused of being in Madrid cell of al-Qaida
· Vanessa Redgrave pays £40,000 bail after arrests
Vikram Dodd
Friday December 21, 2007
The Guardian
Three men detained by British police after their release from Guantánamo Bay have been reunited with their families for the first time in nearly five years, although two face extradition to Spain.
One man, Abdennour Samuer, 34, was released by counter-terrorism police without charge, but the other two were arrested early yesterday. Spain accuses Jamil el-Banna, 45, and Omar Deghayes, 38, of membership of an al-Qaida cell in Madrid. The pair were released on bail yesterday - £40,000 of it paid by the actor Vanessa Redgrave - pending a full hearing of the extradition request.
Banna left court to see his five children for the first time in five years. His youngest daughter was born after his capture by the United States and has never met her father.
Outside court Banna, looking exhausted, said: "I am tired, I want to go home and see my children."
Deghayes was granted bail late yesterday by senior district judge Timothy Workman after a hearing at City of Westminster magistrates court. After the hearing his mother, Zohra Zewawi, said: "I'm really really happy, yesterday I could not sleep. All today I have been so stressed but now I'm so happy."
The pair were each required to pay £50,000 surety and abide by tough conditions, including a curfew, electronic tags and not travelling abroad. In granting bail Workman dismissed claims from the crown that they would flee abroad or engage in terrorist acts.
Melanie Cumberland, representing the Spanish government, told the court that a Spanish judge had issued warrants for the arrest of the men on Wednesday, the day they flew back to Britain from Guantánamo.
Cumberland said Banna had been a member of the Islamic Alliance based in Madrid and was an associate of Imad Yarkas, convicted by a Spanish court of terrorism offences. Spain alleges Banna and Deghayes belonged to the cell which provided members to train in Afghan and Indonesian terror camps. The cell was also alleged to have raised funds for terrorism and to have spread al-Qaida propaganda.
But Ed Fitzgerald QC, representing both men, accused the crown of making wild accusations "for which there was no evidence". He said there was evidence that neither the US nor UK authorities considered the men to pose a significant danger.
A US administrative review board which met at Guantánamo Bay had decided in May that Banna did not pose a risk to the US or its allies. It had also decided the same for Deghayes. British counter terrorism police had questioned both men and decided that they should not be charged with any offence.
Fitzgerald said "the centrepiece" of the Spanish case was a video allegedly showing Deghayes taking part in terrorist acts in Dagestan. But an expert had concluded the person in the video was a Chechen fighter who had died years ago.
Granting bail to Banna, Mr Workman said: "The prosecution concerns about offences being committed are outweighed by the detailed review being carried out in the US."
Banna's family in north London had expected him back the previous night, which was the Muslim festival of Eid, after hearing he had been released from Guantánamo.
Lawyers said the police told them that he would be released after arriving in Britain at Luton airport after a short period of questioning. They said a hotel room had been booked for a reunion with his family.
Banna's MP, Sarah Teather said "immense cruelty" had been inflicted on the Banna family by the last second crushing of their hopes. They were only told at 8.30pm on Wednesday that he would not be coming home.
Teather said: "The children could not understand why he was not back and Sabah [his wife] was devastated."
All three men arrived back at Luton airport at 6.50pm on Wednesday. Samuer was taken to Paddington Green station in London.
Banna was taken to Dunstable police station in Bedfordshire, and after counter terrorism officers decided there was no case against him he was arrested on a European arrest warrant early on Thursday.
The three men were released from Guantánamo after Britain reversed its position of refusing to help them. They were British residents and the Blair government had argued they would not intervene on their behalf.
Profile: Judge Baltasar Garzón
Baltasar Garzón is known in Spain as a "superjuez", or super-judge, for his campaigns against Islamist terrorist cells, former dictators and the Basque armed group Eta. While critics say he courts attention with media-friendly arrests, his supporters defend him as a man whose dedication to public service makes him an easy target for mockery.
The son of a farmer turned petrol attendant, Garzón made his name in Spain in the 1980s when he challenged the then Socialist government over its role in semi-official death squads that operated against Eta in the Basque country.
But it was when he campaigned for the extradition of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet from the UK to Spain in the 1990s that he gained a worldwide reputation as a crusading judge. Although this failed, his fame has risen ever since.
A leftwinger, with slicked-back silver hair and sharp suits, he stands out from the traditional image of the Spanish judge and was one of the youngest magistrates appointed to the all-powerful Audiencia Nacional court in 1988. Unlike many Spanish judges, he is the first to work in the morning, and the last to leave court.
Keenly aware of the importance of his job, there sometimes seems to be no case too controversial, too old or too difficult for him to take on.
Some say this has led him to believe his own press, and he is accused of making sweeping arrests that subsequently result in acquittals.
Garzón also harbours political ambitions and was briefly a junior minister under the previous Socialist government in 1993. Though he rarely shares his personal opinions in public, he described invading Iraq as an "act of madness".
Paul Hamilos |
Garzón's indictment of 35 Al Q members including OBL dates from 17 September 2003
A man who has been illegally kidnapped with the collusion of MI5, held in prisons and a concentration camp for five years, who has murdered nobody may yet be extradited to Spain.
Yet, a brutal dictator who has the blood of los disparos on his hands, doesn't get extradited to Spain but instead walks free, aided and abetted by Jack Straw.
| Quote: | Straw: Pinochet may never stand trial
General Augusto Pinochet will probably never now stand trial for the crimes he is alleged to have committed during his 17 year rule in Chile, Home Secretary Jack Straw has told the Commons.
Addressing MPs barely minutes after the Chilean air force plan carrying the former dictator had left the UK, Mr Straw said that he had been "keenly aware of the gravity" of the alleged crimes carried out by General Pinochet.
But he added that the case had been unprecedented and, as a result, both he and the UK's courts had been forced to navigate "in uncharted territory".
In a separate statement outside of Parliament, former prime minister Lady Thatcher welcomed the end of a "political vendetta" which had "tarnished" the reputation of British justice.
Review of law
Mr Straw said he now wanted a review of the UK's extradition law and he would be publishing a consultation document soon.
It has established beyond question the principle that those who commit human rights abuses in one country cannot assume they are safe elsewhere, that will be lasting legacy of this case.
Jack Straw
"I'm all too well aware of the practical consequences of refusing to extradite Senator Pinochet to Spain is that he will probably not be tried anywhere," Mr Straw told the MPs.
"I'm very conscience of the sense of injury that is bound to be felt by those who suffered from breaches of human rights in Chile in the past as well as their relatives."
All of these matters had been "of great concern" when Mr Straw came to considering the evidence of General Pinochet's state of health.
But he added: "Ultimately, however, I was driven to the conclusion that a trial of the charges against Senator Pinochet, however desirable, was simply no longer possible," he told MPs.
Mr Straw described how he had received 70,000 emails and letters from the public, mainly calling for the former dictator to be extradited.
Jack Straw: 'Decision was mine alone'
Stressing that the decision had been his alone and not that of the government as a whole, he said: "This case has been an unprecedented one," he said.
"Throughout the process I have sought to exercise my responsibilities in a fair and rational way in accordance with the law. The case has understandably aroused great debate and feeling.
"It's impact has been felt world wide. It has established beyond question the principle that those who commit human rights abuses in one country cannot assume they are safe elsewhere.
"That will be lasting legacy of this case."
'Muddle and delay'
Shadow home secretary Ann Widdecombe told MPs the whole case had been characterised by "muddle, contradiction and delay".
Miss Widdecombe welcomed the review of extradition law but called on the home secretary to publish the full costs "from beginning to the end of this case".
She said it had always been her opinion it was Chile's decision whether the former dictator should stand trial.
"It is a satisfactory outcome of a deeply unsatisfactory case," she said.
"At the end of these procedures, I can't believe Spain, Chile, the senator or the relatives or victims of the alleged crimes are happy at all.
"I can't believe anyone has gained satisfaction from the way the case has been handled."
Thatcher welcomes decision
Speaking later in the day, Lady Thatcher, a long-time supporter of the general, said that the entire process had been a waste of public money.
"Senator Pinochet was a staunch friend of Britain throughout the Falklands war," she said, reading a statement outside her London office.
"His reward from this Government was to be held prisoner for 16 months.
In the meantime his health has been broken, the reputation of our courts has been tarnished and vast sums of public money have been squandered for a political vendetta.
"So, friends of Britain be warned - the same could happen to you." |
_________________
The Medium is the Massage - Marshall McLuhan. |
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Thermate911
Angel - now passed away
Joined: 16 Jul 2007
Posts: 1451
Location: UEMS
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 5:41 pm Post subject: |
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ex-PM Thatcher spake with forked tongue, as the facts of the Pinochet case clearly demonstrate.
| Quote: | | "So, friends of Britain be warned - the same could happen to you." |
She happened, she's still happening...
And we're still stuck in her soulless nightmare.
At least the authorities quickly realized the further damage that would be caused by detaining anyone just freed from an illegal US hellhole (even going through the motions to save face looks utterly despicable).
Thank you Mrs Thatcher for being such a blatant NWO patsy - it has coalesced a majority into acting from their hearts at long last...
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Bongo
9/11 Truth critic
Joined: 17 Jan 2007
Posts: 687
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| Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 7:28 pm Post subject: |
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Asolutely disgraceful.
They cannot possibly tell us that we are wrong (or conspiracy theorists) when they are acting out the NWO police state in plain view of everyone, right out in the open.
Screw them all. 
We will win guy's. Keep possitive. 
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TonyGosling
Editor
Joined: 25 Jul 2005
Posts: 18335
Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
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Annie
9/11 Truth Organiser
Joined: 25 Feb 2006
Posts: 830
Location: London
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 10:52 pm Post subject: |
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Try this:
http://www.anniemachon.com/annie_machon/2008/05/british-spies-a.html
I also seem to remember, at the height of the internment row, that the UK government was trying to persuade the Belmarsh internees to return to their countries of origin on the understanding that they wouldn't be tortured.
Yeah, right.
_________________
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to do nothing - Edmund Burke.
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem Americanam appellant - Tacitus Redactus. |
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TonyGosling
Editor
Joined: 25 Jul 2005
Posts: 18335
Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
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