Guantanamo detainees out on bail

Magistrates are considering extraditing two men held at the Guantanamo Bay holding facility, accused of being al-Qaeda members in Madrid, to Spain to face terror allegations.

Jamil El-Banna and Omar Deghayes will be tagged and placed under curfew.

A third man, Abdenour Samuer, who was also held at Guantanamo, was arrested and held in custody but released without charge from Paddington Green police station.

Feeling 'tired'

Following his release to curfew, El-Banna, a father of five, said in a statement: "Thank you very much everybody, my solicitor, the British people, the British government for your help. I'm tired. I want to go home and see my children."

El-Banna, 45, was detained under port and border controls and arrested on Thursday morning after questioning at a Dunstable police station.

He appeared at Westminster Magistrates' Court in central London looking bewildered. Senior district judge Timothy Workman granted him bail of £50,000.

Appearing later at the court, Deghayes was also granted bail of £50,000. "I am very, very happy to be home. I am very grateful to everybody who has helped me,” he said.

"I would have been happier if everybody in Guantanamo were released and that ugly, bad place was closed down if not demolished,” he added.

"I need some rest, but I will be very happy to speak to everybody in the media to help other people to be released."

The actress and human rights campaigner Vanessa Redgrave, who put forward part of El-Banna's surety, said it had been a "profound honor" to be able to help.

"I'm glad…to do this. Guantanamo Bay is a concentration camp - It's a disgrace that these men have been kept there all these years, and today Jamil will be back home." She said.

As part of his bail conditions, El-Banna must obey a curfew, live at his home in Dollis Hill, north London, and wear an electronic tag.

'Terrorist propaganda'

The court heard as a member of the Islamic Alliance, El-Banna had allegedly helped to recruit people to terrorist training camps and distributed terrorist propaganda between 1996 and 2001.

His lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald QC, said there would be massive issues as to the lapse of time over extradition and his human rights.

Protesters against his detention and family members gathered outside court.

Among them was Liberal Democrat Sarah Teather, MP for El-Banna, who described Spain's move as "extremely distasteful and very insensitive".

Earlier, Clive Stafford Smith, another of El-Banna's lawyers, accused the government of lying about the three men's release.

"To do this when they are so close to home and their families, I think, is reprehensible," he said.

"It would have been fine if that was what they [the government] had told us was going to happen. I have no problem with them questioning my clients but they lied."

He said he had previously tried to encourage a Spanish extradition request as a means of getting the men out of Guantanamo, but said the authorities in Madrid had never showed any interest.

"For quite a long time, we tried to get the Spanish to demand their release because we thought it was an elegant way to get them out of Guantanamo. The Spanish weren't interested," he told BBC Two's Newsnight.

El-Banna first came to the security services' attention because he knew Abu Qatada, a radical cleric, described as a "key UK figure" in al-Qaeda related terror activity.

'Mistaken identity'

Mr Deghayes, 38, and Samuer, 34, were arrested on board an aircraft shortly after it arrived from Guantanamo.

Stafford Smith said Deghayes had been detained in Guantanamo accused of committing terrorist acts against the United States, after Spanish intelligence services obtained a video.

The Chechen terrorist training video purports to show Deghayes, but a BBC Newsnight investigation revealed the man in question was actually Abu Walid, a Saudi who is now dead.

Stafford Smith told Newsnight that the Spanish case was based on false evidence and the situation was "dismaying".

"The idea now that they want to use this evidence we've proved to be false to take them for further detention is very worrying," he added.

Both El-Banna and Deghayes were among four Guantanamo detainees named in December 2003 by Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, over alleged al-Qaeda links.

Judge Garzon recommended that all four stand trial in Spain, but only two suspects - a Moroccan man and a Spanish national - were extradited. Both were cleared of wrongdoing.

American accusations

The Home Office agreed the release of the three men with the US on 10 December following intensive negotiations.

Another freed UK resident, Shaker Abdur-Raheem Aamer, is expected to return to his native Saudi Arabia.

A fifth UK resident, Ethiopian Binyam Mohammed, will remain at Guantanamo.

The Pentagon insists that all five of the British residents are dangerous.

The Americans accused Palestinian El-Banna of being an al-Qaeda recruiter and financier, Libyan Deghayes of associating with al-Qaeda, and Algerian Samuer of being trained for combat in Afghanistan.

About 300 prisoners are held at Guantanamo Bay, set up at a US naval base in Cuba in early 2002 after the invasion of Afghanistan.


BBC News 

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