Five British men held by the US military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, flew back to England, where four were immediately arrested on suspicion of involvement in terrorism. The fifth was released.
The five landed on Tuesday at Northolt Royal Air Force Base aboard a military C17 transport, unshackled and accompanied by independent observers.
PHOTO: AFP
Four of the men were whisked away in armored police vans to the Paddington Green high security police station in west London, where terrorist suspects are held.
The fifth, 37-year-old Jamal al-Harith, also known as Jamal Udeen, was released after questioning at the air base by immigration authorities.
Al-Harith, a Web site designer from Manchester in northern England, reportedly was backpacking in Pakistan near the Afghan border when he was arrested in September, 2001 by the Taliban, who feared he was a spy. He reportedly was sent to Guantanamo after US forces found him in a jail in Kandahar, Afghanistan.
"He's an innocent man and he wants to know why was he kept in custody for so long,'' al-Harith's lawyer, Robert Lizar, told reporters.
Metropolitan Police said the four other men were arrested under a section of the Terrorism Act that concerns alleged involvement in the commission, preparation, or instigation of terrorist acts. They gave no further details.
The five men were among nine Britons whose captivity at the US military prison had caused friction between the two allies.
The arrests were not unexpected. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said police would consider whether to arrest the men, and that prosecutors -- not Prime Minister Tony Blair's ministers -- will decide whether to press charges.
Police said the four terror suspects were allowed a telephone call and access to lawyers of their choice. All would undergo medical examinations before questioning, said Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Peter Clarke, the national coordinator for anti-terrorism.
"Everything that happens to these men from the moment they arrived on UK soil will be entirely in accordance with United Kingdom law and the normal procedures in these cases will be followed to the letter," Clarke said.
The five were released from the US Navy prison in Cuba after months of talks between British and American officials, including US President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, who discussed the detentions of British subjects when Bush visited London in November.
Four Britons remain at Guantanamo. Negotiations over their fates will continue.
Britain had demanded that its nine nationals, who had been held without charge or access to lawyers, either be given fair trials or returned home.
Some legal experts doubt there will be enough evidence to try any of the returnees because information gleaned from interrogation at Guantanamo would be inadmissible in court.
It is also unclear whether British courts have jurisdiction over alleged criminal acts in Afghanistan, unless crimes of terrorism or treason could be proven, the experts said.
Blair has emphasized that those held at Guantanamo had to be handled carefully because they might pose a danger to Britain's national security.
But some Britons have expressed anger over the men's detention without the rights normally afforded to defendants.
About 640 prisoners are held at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to Afghanistan's fallen Taliban regime or the al-Qaeda terror network.
The British government had announced last month that five Britons held at Guantanamo would be released. They had been identified as al-Harith, Ruhal Ahmed, Tarek Dergoul, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul.
The four still at Guantanamo are Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi, Richard Belmar and Martin Mubanga. Begg and Abbasi had been listed as some of the first detainees likely to face a military commission, a possibility Britain has criticized.
Blair's official spokesman said on Tuesday that the Britons should only be tried in the US if they had access to legal representation and rights of appeal.
In the US, where Home Secretary David Blunkett gave a speech on Tuesday in Boston, his spokeswoman Allison Potter-Drake said Blunkett "has always personally felt that in an ideal world, they would be dealt with [in the United States], but what he has problems with is the process here and what he has always said is he wants a fair trial."
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