Posted on 01/27/2005 4:45:18 PM PST by 1066AD
January 28, 2005
Detention
Pentagon agreed deal to monitor freed four By Sean O’Neill, Richard Ford and Nicola Woolcock
FRIENDS and relatives of the four Britons freed from Guantanamo Bay this week could also face intensive police monitoring, Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said last night.
People sharing an address with any of the four could be denied access to the telephone or internet and have to undergo body searches.
Elaborating on powers announced by the Government this week, Mr Clarke said: “I accept that an individual is different to a family but where there is an individual deemed to be a threat on security grounds we need the powers to stop that person engaging in terrorism.
“Just because somebody’s wife wants to chat with her friends about going shopping that’s not therefore a reason to let somebody cause a bomb explosion,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “These are serious people and serious organisations trying to destroy our society.”
Mr Clarke said details of how the four men, who were released without charge, would be monitored had been negotiated with the Pentagon before they were flown home from the internment camp on Tuesday.
Nine terrorism suspects being held without charge in British jails could also be released next week — but will be under house-arrest conditions. Lawyers representing the nine will be in court on Monday to seek their release from Belmarsh and Woodhill prisons. They will propose that the men be granted bail subject to any conditions that the court may impose. The nine will not attend the Special Immigration Appeal Commission in London.
One suspect held under the Anti-Crime Terror and Security Act has already been released with stringent conditions that are effectively house arrest. He cannot contact anyone other than those on a Home Office list and must report by telephone to a monitoring centre.
Last night it was thought unlikely that the Government would allow them bail except under very strict conditions.
The four flown home from Guantanamo Bay spent their first day of freedom with their families but remain under surveillance. Their telephone calls and e-mails will be intercepted.
Moazzam Begg, 36, Martin Mubanga, 32, Feroz Abbasi, 25, and Richard Belmar, 25, were freed without charge on Wednesday after being questioned by the Anti-Terrorist Branch. But, because they were freed, the Pentagon said they still represented “a significant threat”.
US nervousness can be partially explained because at least another ten detainees released from Guantanamo Bay have rejoined Taleban forces in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Mr Clarke told BBC Radio 4: “I am, of course, well aware of the US’s concerns. A security package was negotiated to ensure that all steps would be taken in the event of the men’s release. Every step is being taken by relevant authorities in the light of their assessments to maintain national security.”
He had spoken to Sir John Stevens, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, before the men were released at Paddington Green police station and was satisfied that due process had been followed and there was no evidence to charge the men with any offence.
“The British Government, police and security services have been in close liaison with the United States to work out a security package to ensure national security and public safety,” the Home Office said. The greatest concern for the US is over Mr Abbasi, who was allegedly captured fighting with al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. The minutes of his “combatant status review tribunal” last year recorded him as telling American officers that he was “honoured” that Allah would allow him to be called an “enemy combatant”.
Mr Abbasi’s lawyers have emphasised that nothing said in the tribunal can be relied upon. He was held in solitary confinement for a year and, as with other detainees, alleged that he was tortured and ill-treated.
VISITORS WARNED
Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs is warning its citizens to take extra care when visiting Britain. A new advisory says: “Australians should be aware that, while there is currently no specific information to suggest an imminent terrorist attack in the UK, political leaders and police authorities have warned of the high probability of some kind of attempted terrorist action.”
US Accuses Briton of Being Suicide Bomber
The Sunday Times [UK] ^ | November 21, 2004 | Dipesh Gadher and Joe Lauria
Posted on 11/20/2004 8:24:37 PM PST by quidnunc
Tony Blair is facing new controversy over his efforts to secure the release of the Britons held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba after America accused one of the detainees of being an Al-Qaeda terrorist who volunteered for a suicide mission.
American court papers revealed for the first time this weekend say that Feroz Abbasi, a college dropout, had received advanced military training at terror camps in Afghanistan and was present on at least two occasions when Osama Bin Laden visited.
Abbasi, 24, from Croydon, south London, is alleged to have met other senior Al-Qaeda figures and fought with a crack unit of Islamic terrorists during the Afghan conflict with America and its allies. The revelations — the most detailed account to date of the US case against any of the four Britons at Guantanamo Bay — are likely to leave Blair with a diplomatic dilemma.
Less than a fortnight ago the prime minister raised the plight of the Britons with George W Bush during a trip to Washington. Blair is believed to have asked for the prisoners to be returned to Britain unless they could be guaranteed a fair trial. His wife Cherie recently criticised the lack of legal rights afforded to prisoners at Camp Delta. However, the serious nature of the American allegations against Abbasi — and the security concerns they raise if he were to be freed — could wreck a potential deal.
The new documents obtained by The Sunday Times have been filed in a district court in Washington DC where lawyers acting for Abbasi and the three other British prisoners are challenging their detention.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Sheikh Abu Hamza, the extremist Muslim cleric, is facing imminent arrest on a US extradition warrant after a former close associate pleaded guilty to helping the Taliban. Hamza claimed yesterday that James Ujaama, an American convert to Islam, had been coerced into giving evidence against him that would lead to "a gross miscarriage of justice".
Ujaama, 37, who ran Hamza's website and worshipped at his Finsbury Park mosque in north London, has struck a plea bargain agreement to give evidence against Hamza on terrorist allegations.
He has already supplied the US authorities, who have designated Hamza as a key al-Qa'eda recruiter in Europe, with information that they hope to use to indict the cleric.
Ujaama admitted to a court in Seattle that in late 2000, under orders from Hamza, he escorted Feroz Abbasi, a student from Croydon now detained at Guantanamo Bay, to an al-Qa'eda camp in Afghanistan "to undergo violent jihad training". While in Afghanistan, Ujaama also delivered cash and installed software programmes on computers belonging to Taliban officials.
Ujaama pleaded guilty to conspiring to support the Taliban. Prosecutors in Seattle have asked that he be jailed for two years instead of the 10-year term applicable for the offence. Other charges against him were dropped.
John Ashcroft, the US attorney general, said he expected that Ujaama's decision to co-operate with the authorities would "lead to the arrest of additional terrorists and the disruption of future terrorist activity".
But in a statement issued through his solicitors, Hamza said the American prosecutors had been "exerting pressure" on Ujaama "in order to coerce him to facilitate evidence of the nature that they wished to be provided with".
He added: "It comes as no surprise that James Ujaama under such pressure whilst on remand away from his family in the UK is likely to provide evidence which is tainted."
After being in gitmo for so long it's be a shame if he stepped off a curb in England and looked "left" for traffic.
Street justice......a novel concept for such prophets of doom.
LOL! It'd be even funnier if he stepped off a curb and into the way of that double-decker bus the human shield folks drove to Baghdad before the war.
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