Five of the nine British terrorist suspects held at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will soon return home and face further investigation by anti-terrorist police here, officials said.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said on Thursday that discussions were continuing about the other four detained Britons, who are among about 650 prisoners being held at the US naval base on suspicion of being al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters.
Straw said the five would be flown back "in the next few weeks" and that it was up to prosecutors whether they would face trial.
"The police will consider whether to arrest them ... for questioning in connection with possible terrorist activity," Straw told reporters.
"There are a range of security and other issues, which we and the Americans need to consider in respect of the four men."
London's Metropolitan Police force said its anti-terrorist branch was investigating the five Britons and would contact their families and lawyers.
It declined to say whether it would send officers to accompany the men back to Britain.
Britain's top law enforcement official, Home Secretary David Blunkett, said none of the five "will actually be a threat to the security of the British people."
Earlier Thursday, Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen told his parliament that a Dane held at the base for two years will soon be released and return to Denmark a free man.
Five other Guantanamo prisoners -- a Spaniard and four Saudi Arabians -- were recently released and returned to their countries for detention or possible prosecution.
At the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan said the US has received assurances from Denmark and Britain that the detainees being released will not pose "any future threat to America or our friends and allies."
Experts claimed, however, that it would be difficult to try the five Britons here, as evidence gleaned from them in Guantanamo would generally not be admissible in court.
The announcement followed months of negotiations between US and British authorities.
Prime Minister Tony Blair has come under intense pressure from lawmakers within his own party to secure the release of the Britons, who have been held for up to two years.
The US says the many prisoners at Guantanamo, who come from 42 countries, are "enemy combatants," not prisoners of war, and can be tried by military tribunals.
But human rights groups insist their detention is unlawful.
The US Supreme Court will decide this year whether the detainees at Guantanamo can be held indefinitely without lawyers and hearings.
The British government named the five Britons to be released as Rhuhel Ahmed, 23; Tarek Dergoul, 24; Jamal al-Harith, 35; Asif Iqbal, 20; and Shafiq Rasul, 25.
The four Britons who will remain at Guantanamo include Moazzam Begg, 36, and Feroz Abbasi, 23, who had been listed as some of the first detainees likely to face a military commission there. The other two men are Richard Belmar, 23, and Martin Mubanga, 29.
Straw said that Britain's attorney general believed that "the military commissions, as presently constituted, would not provide the type of process which we would afford British nationals."
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
RSS