Britain seeks Guantánamo releases

The British government has requested the release of five former UK residents being held in Guantánamo Bay, the Foreign Office said on Aug. 7. The foreign secretary, David Miliband, has written to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking that the men be freed from the US base in Cuba. They are not British nationals but had lived in the UK before they were detained, the Foreign Office said. The decision by the prime minister, Gordon Brown, marks a break from his predecessor, Tony Blair, who generally held that the British government was not obliged to seek the release of Guantánamo inmates who had lived in Britain but did not hold citizenship. Any transfers would depend on assurances that prisoners would be kept in detention, said US spokesman Sean McCormack. The five -- Shaker Aamer, Jamil el-Banna, Omar Deghayes, Binyam Mohamed and Abdennour Sameur -- had been granted refugee status, indefinite leave or exceptional leave to remain before they were detained. Britain secured the release and return of all UK nationals held at Guantánamo by January 2005. The Foreign Office statement cautioned, however, that the release and return of the men might take some time. Amnesty International said: "Guantánamo is a travesty of justice and it's important that the government starts speaking out about hundreds of men still held there…. Meanwhile, the UK government should unequivocally condemn the practice of rendition and secret detention -- both of which have fed the system at Guantánamo in the past five years." In June, former US Secretary of State Colin Powell called for the immediate closure of the camp and the transfer of prisoners to the US. About 380 detainees remain at the prison, which was opened by the US government in 2002 to hold foreign terror suspects, initially from the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. The inmates, given the status of "enemy combatants," are not granted the same rights as prisoners of war, and are tried by special military tribunals.