Sixth Briton held at Camp X-Ray

BBC ^ | May 12, 2002

[stiga bey]

More than 250 suspects are being held in Cuba

A sixth Briton is being held by the US at Camp X-Ray, the Foreign Office has confirmed.

Martin Mubanga was arrested in Zambia and then transferred to the maximum security base at Guantanamo Base in Cuba.

The 29-year-old, who has dual British-Zambian nationality, is believed to be from north London.

Briton Feroz Abbasi is also being held Mr Mubanga was understood to have had fled to Zambia after fighting in Afghanistan alongside al-Qaeda and the Taleban, according to The Sunday Times.

It is thought Mr Mubanga was held by the Zambian authorities for some time before being handed over to US authorities.

The Foreign Office spokesman said consular access and information were requested while Mr Mubanga was being detained in Zambia, but that request was refused.

The spokesman said: "As a dual national, Mubanga was treated as a Zambian national when detained there.

"Under international law we are unable to interfere in the judicial processes of other countries."

Courier

The son of a former Zambian government official whose family moved to Britain in the 1970s, Mr Mubanga reportedly lived in Wembley, north west London, before moving to nearby Dollis Hill, The Times Sunday said.

He is reported to have worked as a cycle courier in London before travelling to Afghanistan, where he is said to have attended several al-Qaeda training camps.

The Foreign Office had no record of a seventh, un-named Briton being held in the base, as reported in the newspaper.

The other Britons being held in Guantanamo Bay are Shafiq Rasul, 22, Asif Iqbal, 21, and Ruhal Ahmed, 20, all from Tipton in the West Midlands; Feroz Abbasi, 22, from Croydon, south London; and Jamal Udeen, 35, from Manchester.

They were all captured in Afghanistan.

[norton]

After so many years of being hammered with hyphenated "Other-Americans" it is really weird to see an article written about "Britons" in which the only clue to their otherness is a list of very un-British names.

I'm fully aware that even the name is not indigenous to the islands and that the populace prior to very recent times was almost totally "other-european" but somehow 'Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed, Feroz Abbasi, and Jamal Udeen' fail to make the transition that centuries of German, Spanish, French, Nordic, Indian and even African peoples did.

Wonder if there is a message somewhere in that?