Doubts remain over British Guantanamo detainees

Wednesday, 28 January 2009 6:20 PM

By politics.co.uk staff

The murky status of detainees at Guantanamo Bay has been clouded further after doubt was cast on when British-linked inmates would be released.

Legal sources told inthenews.co.uk that they were completely in the dark about the fate of the British Guantanamo detainees.

"We are not told when they are going or where they are going," one source said, suggesting that the first official indication would be when they were met by immigration officials at Heathrow airport.

Barack Obama has signed presidential orders saying the camp must be closed by this time next year, with governments discussing the best course of action for the 250 remaining detainees.

Among them is Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian granted refugee status in the UK in 1994 who has spent the last four years at Guantanamo.

After being arrested in Pakistan, the 38-year-old was flown to Morocco - where he claims he was tortured - and then to Guantanamo via Afghanistan.

The Independent claimed last week to have seen confidential documents confirming Mr Mohamed's imminent release, with the inmate himself complaining at remaining at Guantanamo until the end of the Bush administration.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said it was involved in "ongoing" discussions with US authorities over the practicalities of transferring the detainees to the UK, and that there was no timescale on when they would arrive.

The other remaining British-linked Guantanamo detainees are Shaker Aamer, a 41-year-old Saudi national married to a British woman with four London-based children, who the FCO says it will permit back into the UK.

But Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian who previously lived in London, has had his claims to residency disputed.

Britain has already been roundly criticised by human rights groups for refusing to accept any foreign detainees who face torture in their own countries once Guantanamo is closed.

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