The last Britons held as terror suspects at the US jail at Guantanamo Bay for up to three years arrived home on Tuesday and were immediately arrested under Britain's domestic anti-terrorism laws.
A Royal Air Force C-17 transport plane carrying the four men touched down at the RAF Northolt base in west London just after 5pm, where they were whisked off in a police convoy.
London's Metropolitan Police said in a statement it had arrested Moazzam Begg, Richard Belmar, Martin Mubanga and Feroz Abbasi while they were still sitting on the stationary plane.
They were held under a section of Britain's Terrorism Act of 2000 "which refers to the alleged involvement in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism," police said.
Their arrest had been widely expected, but it still comes as a blow to relatives and supporters who have insisted the men, who were detained without trial at the US base in Cuba for as long as three years, are completely innocent.
Britain's top anti-terrorist policeman, Detective Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, said on Tuesday his force had discussed the case with Muslim groups and recognized there were "strong feelings" about the case.
"But the fact is that we have an absolute duty on behalf of all communities to investigate the circumstances leading to the men's detention," he said, insisting they would be treated "properly and fairly."
The men remained jailed late on Tuesday at London's top-security Paddington Green police station, the usual holding point for terrorism suspects, and were likely to be held overnight. They were to be questioned yesterday.
Five other British men who were freed from Guantanamo Bay last March were formally arrested by police but quizzed only briefly before being allowed to go home.
Begg, 36, Mubanga, 31, and Belmar and Abbasi, both 25, were all arrested in Afghanistan or Pakistan, or had visited there previously, and US authorities have linked them to al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups.
However, the men's lawyers insist they are innocent, saying on Tuesday that they should be set free without delay after their alleged mistreatment in US custody.
"They suffered horrendously," said Clive Stafford-Smith, who represents Begg and Belmar.
"Given what they've been through, they've held up as well as can be expected but they're victims of torture and torture victims suffer from PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder]," he said.
"The British would be totally insane to put them on trial," he told the BBC later on Tuesday, adding that his clients would definitely be bringing a case against the US government.
All four men had spent at least some of their detention in solitary confinement, said Stafford-Smith and lawyer Louise Christian, who represents the other pair, with Begg and Abbassi enduring it for nearly two years.
Christian said she was "apprehensive" about her clients' health.
"Martin Mubanga has written letters alleging extremes of hot and cold, being deprived of basic sanitary items, such as toilet paper and toothpaste," she said.
DISASTER: The Bangladesh Meteorological Department recorded a magnitude 5.7 and tremors reached as far as Kolkata, India, more than 300km away from the epicenter A powerful earthquake struck Bangladesh yesterday outside the crowded capital, Dhaka, killing at least five people and injuring about a hundred, the government said. The magnitude 5.5 quake struck at 10:38am near Narsingdi, Bangladesh, about 33km from Dhaka, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said. The earthquake sparked fear and chaos with many in the Muslim-majority nation of 170 million people at home on their day off. AFP reporters in Dhaka said they saw people weeping in the streets while others appeared shocked. Bangladesh Interim Leader Muhammad Yunus expressed his “deep shock and sorrow over the news of casualties in various districts.” At least five people,
It is one of the world’s most famous unsolved codes whose answer could sell for a fortune — but two US friends say they have already found the secret hidden by Kryptos. The S-shaped copper sculpture has baffled cryptography enthusiasts since its 1990 installation on the grounds of the CIA headquarters in Virginia, with three of its four messages deciphered so far. Yet K4, the final passage, has kept codebreakers scratching their heads. Sculptor Jim Sanborn, 80, has been so overwhelmed by guesses that he started charging US$50 for each response. Sanborn in August announced he would auction the 97-character solution to K4
SHOW OF FORCE: The US has held nine multilateral drills near Guam in the past four months, which Australia said was important to deter coercion in the region Five Chinese research vessels, including ships used for space and missile tracking and underwater mapping, were active in the northwest Pacific last month, as the US stepped up military exercises, data compiled by a Guam-based group shows. Rapid militarization in the northern Pacific gets insufficient attention, the Pacific Center for Island Security said, adding that it makes island populations a potential target in any great-power conflict. “If you look at the number of US and bilateral and multilateral exercises, there is a lot of activity,” Leland Bettis, the director of the group that seeks to flag regional security risks, said in an
‘DIGNITY’: The Ukrainian president said that ‘we did not not betray Ukraine then, we will not do so now,’ amid US pressure to give significant concessions to Russia Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday pushed back against a US plan to end the war in Ukraine, while Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the proposal that includes many of his hardline demands. With US President Donald Trump giving Ukraine less than a week to sign, Zelenskiy pledged to work to ensure any deal would not “betray” Ukraine’s interests, while acknowledging he risked losing Washington as an ally. Putin said the blueprint could “lay the foundation” for a final peace settlement, but threatened more land seizures if Ukraine walked away from negotiations. Ukraine faces one of the most challenging moments in its history,
RSS