Guantanamo detainees 'would be cleared in fair trial'

A lawyer representing British residents who are reportedly set to be released from Guantanamo Bay said today they would be cleared in any fair trial.

Jamil El Banna, Omar Deghayes and Abdennour Samuer will return to the UK, while Shaker Aamer will return to his native Saudi Arabia, according to a report by the BBC.

A fifth man, Ethiopian Binyam Mohamed, will remain at Guantanamo, the report said.

The UK Foreign Office has not confirmed the reports and said only that discussions were ongoing.

A lawyer representing the men, Clive Stafford Smith, said today: “There’s no doubt that the agreement has been struck, that they will return home, the question is, when?

“There’s no reason why they couldn’t come home tomorrow, but the US are insisting on a lot of red tape.”

Asked whether he expected them to be questioned by British police on their return to the UK, as British nationals returning from Guantanamo have been, he said: “I am sure they will be briefly questioned, but equally sure they will be released. There is no reason to detain them.

“The police are welcome to ask them all the questions they want.

“If people are concerned about any of them, be my guest, investigate them, charge them if you want, give them a fair trial, and at the end of any fair trial, they will be acquitted, because they are not a threat to Britain in any way.”

The men are not British nationals but were legally resident in the UK before they were detained.

UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband previously requested the former UK residents be sent back from the US detention centre in Guantanamo, in a reversal of previous UK policy, and America has been considering the request.

The move represented a change from the government’s previous position of maintaining they were not obliged to seek the release of Guantanamo inmates who were British residents but did not hold British citizenship.

By January 2005 the Government had secured the release and return of all UK nationals detained at the centre but had not sought the release of this group of men.

All the men, some of whom had lived and worked in Britain for decades, had been granted refugee status, indefinite leave or exceptional leave to remain before they were detained.

The UK Foreign Office has said it reviewed its approach in the light of its aim to see the closure of the detention centre and recent steps taken by the US government to reduce the numbers of detainees being held there.