British police have freed all five Britons flown home from Guantanamo Bay prison camp -- and the former terror suspects began denouncing their US captors yesterday amid questions about why they were held for two years.
The US turned over the five detainees to British custody on Tuesday, and by late Wednesday British police and prosecutors decided to release all of them without charges.
This could cause trouble for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who will face public dismay as to why it took so long for Washington's closest ally to win its citizens' freedom if authorities at home concluded they should not face trial.
PHOTO: AFP
One of the five freed men was released on Tuesday and the other four on Wednesday, while a further four Britons remain at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba. Washington says they are more dangerous than the five it decided to send home.
Greg Powell, lawyer for one of the freed men, said 21-year-old Rhuhel Ahmed was on his way to a reunion with his family early yesterday after being released just before midnight. He was one of three prisoners from Tipton, a small industrial town in central England.
"He's on his way to meet his family and obviously that's a tremendous moment for all of them, because they haven't seen each other since 2001," Powell said.
Powell said he had met his client at the London jail where he was released and found him in good health. But his treatment at the hands of the Americans had amounted to "torture."
"What I have learned from him is Guantanamo Bay is a kind of experiment in interrogation techniques and methods, really. And they do have extremely interesting stories to tell about what went on there," Powell said.
He declined to give further details about the prisoners' treatment, or explain what his client was doing in Afghanistan when he was arrested.
Powell said Ahmed's family wanted privacy. But the former prisoners will be at the center of a media frenzy -- which could prove a money-spinner if they opt to sell their stories.
None of the five appeared in public immediately.
Britain's most famous publicist, Max Clifford, whose client list ranges from top nobility to O.J. Simpson, said he had been hired by the family of former detainee Terek Dergoul, 24, and expected tabloids would bid six figures for prisoners' stories.
Jamal al Harith, 35, from the northern city of Manchester, was the first to go free shortly after the group landed at a British air base on Tuesday.
Dergoul, a Londoner, was freed on Wednesday, followed by the Tipton detainees, including Ahmed and his friends Asif Iqbal, 20, and Shafiq Rasul, 24. Their families said they had traveled to Pakistan in late 2001 to find one of them a wife.
A fourth youth from Tipton, Monir Ali, had traveled with them and disappeared. His family has hoped the others will provide clues to his fate.
While Blair's supporters see the prisoners' return as a peace dividend for his support of US President George W. Bush, the Guantanamo issue could remain a major political headache.
Britons will want to know why it took more than two years to get them out. Meanwhile, the fate of the four still in Guantanamo will stay high on the political agenda.
Britain says the Bush administration's plans for special military tribunals to try Guantanamo suspects do not measure up to basic fairness standards. It wants either the rules to be modified or the suspects sent back to Britain for trial.
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
MORE BANS: Australia last year required sites to remove accounts held by under-16s, with a few countries pushing for similar action at an EU level and India considering its own ban Indonesia on Friday said it would ban social media access for children under 16, citing threats from online pornography, cyberbullying, online fraud and Internet addiction. “Accounts belonging to children under 16 on high-risk platforms will start to be deactivated, beginning with YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, X, Bigo Live and Roblox,” Indonesian Minister of Communications and Digital Meutya Hafid said. “The government is stepping in so that parents no longer have to fight alone against the giants of the algorithm. Implementation will begin on March 28, 2026,” she said. The social media ban would be introduced in stages “until all platforms fulfill their
RSS