British former detainees at the US military base Guantanamo Bay appealed on Thursday for the release of four Western peace campaigners held hostage and facing execution in Iraq.
Moazzam Begg, a Briton detained for nearly three years at the Guantanamo base in Cuba, said images of the hostages in orange jumpsuits reminded him of their time in detention.
The plea came after Britain issued a renewed appeal for the kidnappers to make contact.
PHOTO: AP
Begg said in a statement on BBC television: "We came home to find that there were people who opposed their government in their brutal war waged against Afghanistan and Iraq and stood on the side of justice. And they were not Muslims."
Begg was one of the last four Britons to be repatriated from Guantanamo in January.
"It is our sincerest belief that Norman Kember, the 74-year-old Briton, and those with him are amongst those people, the many people, who opposed this war from the beginning and were only in Iraq to promote human rights for the oppressed," he said.
"Just like Sheikh Abu Qatada, we also hope that our words may encourage you to show mercy to these men and let them free," Begg said.
In an exceptional gesture, the British Foreign Office authorized Qatada, an Islamist with reputed al-Qaeda connections who is detained in Britain on security grounds, to record on Wednesday an appeal for the hostages' release.
The kidnappers of Kember, Canadians James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, and US national Tom Fox, 54, extended by 48 hours to today their deadline to kill them.
The four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) organization were abducted in Baghdad on Nov. 26 by a group calling itself the Brigades of the Swords of Right. It has threatened to kill them unless all detainees in US and Iraqi prisons are freed.
Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw earlier appealed to the abductors to make contact.
"As I have said before, if the kidnappers want to get in touch with us, we want to hear what they have to say. We have people in Iraq and the region, and they are ready to hear from the kidnappers," Straw said.
Straw's appeal did not include an explicit offer to open negotiations.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of