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.
Indonesia yesterday began enforcing its newly ratified penal code, replacing a Dutch-era criminal law that had governed the country for more than 80 years and marking a major shift in its legal landscape. Since proclaiming independence in 1945, the Southeast Asian country had continued to operate under a colonial framework widely criticized as outdated and misaligned with Indonesia’s social values. Efforts to revise the code stalled for decades as lawmakers debated how to balance human rights, religious norms and local traditions in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. The 345-page Indonesian Penal Code, known as the KUHP, was passed in 2022. It
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
Russia early yesterday bombarded Ukraine, killing two people in the Kyiv region, authorities said on the eve of a diplomatic summit in France. A nationwide siren was issued just after midnight, while Ukraine’s military said air defenses were operating in several places. In the capital, a private medical facility caught fire as a result of the Russian strikes, killing one person and wounding three others, the State Emergency Service of Kyiv said. It released images of rescuers removing people on stretchers from a gutted building. Another pre-dawn attack on the neighboring city of Fastiv killed one man in his 70s, Kyiv Governor Mykola
RSS