A British man held in Guantanamo Bay because of his association with the alleged militant Abu Qatada says that MI5 (British intelligence) urged him to remain friends with the cleric so he could inform on him, according to US military documents, details of which have been learned by the Guardian.
Bisher al-Rawi, originally from Kingston upon Thames southwest of London, says MI5 reassured him that he would not get into trouble for associating with Qatada.
Now Qatada is accused of being a terrorist suspect and is subject to one of the government's new control orders.
Rawi alleges that intelligence agents knew Qatada's location when he was supposedly in hiding after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 2001, because Rawi had told them.
He also alleges that he acted as a "go-between" between the radical cleric and MI5 when the authorities were saying they did not know where the alleged militant was.
Qatada has been branded as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe.
A video of his sermons was found in the Hamburg flat of Mohammed Atta, the leader of the Sept. 11 hijackings.
The startling claims from Rawi came during a hearing at Guantanamo Bay last year. Key sections had been kept classified by the US military authorities, and are revealed here for the first time.
Rawi was arrested in Gambia while on a business trip, before being interned in Guantanamo Bay without charge or trial.
The British government has refused to represent him, because he is an Iraqi citizen, deon to stop this.
Rawi told the US military panel that he had translated for Qatada, a Palestinian refugee, when he had several meetings with officials from either the British Intelligence Service or the British police.
"During a meeting with British Intelligence, I had asked if it was okay for me to continue to have a relationship with Abu Qatada? They assured me it was. They just wanted to understand more about Abu Qatada and the community," he said.
In a letter to the US panel, Rawi said MI5 agents had reassured him that his relationship with Qatada would not get him into trouble.
"[I asked] whether it is okay to have, and continue to have a relationship with Abu Qatada? The answer was always yes. The British authorities knew of my assistance to Abu Qatada ... and it was to their advantage,'' he said.
Rawi called three MI5 officers he said he had contacts with for his Guantanamo hearing. The chairman of the US military tribunal said the British government had refused to cooperate.
"We have contacted the British government and at this time, they are not willing to provide the tribunal with that information," the chairman said.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, the British government passed laws allowing it to detain foreign terror suspects without charge.
Qatada, who feared that he would be a target, went on the run, with the British authorities supposedly unable to find him for 10 months.
But Rawi claims that intelligence agents knew exactly where Qatada was.
"When he disappeared I received a call from the British Intelligence Agency asking if I knew where Abu was ... I told them I did," he said.
"I took a role as a go-between for the British Intelligence Agency and Abu Qatada," Rawi said. "During the time he was supposedly in hiding from them, the British authorities knew where Abu was and they used it to their advantage," he said.
In an interview 18 months ago, Rawi's brother Wahab freely admitted that he and Bisher had assisted Qatada while he was on the run.
Wahab al-Rawi said that when they were being interrogated by US agents in Gambia after they were first arrested, one US agent asked if his brother worked for British intelligence.
A number of Muslims in London doubted that the UK authorities could not find Qatada when he was supposedly on the run from December 2001 to October 2002, in part because so many Muslims here knew where he was.
According to one report, this was a view shared by French intelligence, which claimed that the British secret services were shielding the cleric.
"My relationship with MI5 ended some time mid-summer 2002. A few months had passed before Abu Qatada was arrested. During that time, I saw Abu Qatada on a regular basis. If Abu Qatada was such a danger, why wasn't he arrested before?"
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