Brits ask for release of 5 Gitmo terrorist into UK

Times:

MI5 is to draw up detailed contingency plans for the return of five Guantanamo Bay inmates to Britain, including one accused of having trained at al-Qaeda camps to carry out terrorist attacks in the West.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, announced a policy U-turn yesterday by formally asking the US for the release of the five from Camp Delta. The men will be placed under surveillance and could have terrorist control orders imposed on them if they are thought to be a threat to national security.

A United States military indictment alleges that Binyam Mohammed received firearms and explosives training alongside the shoebomber Richard Reid, was lectured by Osama bin Laden and was given a terrorist mission by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 atrocities.

Mr Mohammed, 29, an Ethiopian who converted to Islam while living in London in the late 1990s, denies the allegations and says that he was charged by the US military only after being tortured at a CIA “ghost prison” in Morocco. His military trial ground to a halt after the US Supreme Court declared it illegal.

But the return of the men — which Washington indicated was likely in the near future — will present ministers with a security headache.

Whitehall sources indicated last night that all the detainees would be subjected to surveillance checks when they arrived back in Britain. MI5 and MI6 were both consulted before the policy change was announced but security sources would not say whether any of the five poses a significant threat. The authorities are also likely to examine the possibility of deporting the five onwards to their countries of birth.

Only one man named in Mr Miliband’s letter to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, has so far been deemed fit for release by the American military. The others still bear the stamp of “enemy combatant” imposed by controversial military tribunals held at the internment camp at a US naval base in Cuba. The man cleared is Jamil el-Banna, a Jordanian refugee with five children in London, who was detained by the CIA in The Gambia in November 2002. But Mr Mohammed’s release has not been declared safe, nor has that of the other three men identified by Mr Miliband. All three have refugee status or leave to remain in Britain.

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This is a very unwise plan that will likely result in more terror attacks in the UK and a greater strain on its internal security resources. It appears that initially at least they will not even be under a control order which has in itself been a very ineffective way of keeping track of suspected terrorist who can't be deported because of the UK/EU "human rights" laws that keep terror suspects in the country rather than deporting them to their country of origin. There are more details on the deal in this commentary by Bronwen Maddox. Apparently the Brits grumbled enough about Gitmo that the US said you take them.