Saudis freed Britons in a secret swap of prisoners
By Andrew Buncombe and Kim Sengupta
05 July 2004
Six Britons convicted on terrorism charges in Saudi Arabia were released last year as part of a secret three-way deal in which the US set free a number of Saudi prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. The deal was brokered to obtain Saudi support for the invasion of Iraq.
Diplomatic and intelligence sources have confirmed to The Independent that the Britons, convicted of a fatal car-bombing, were released last August after the US returned five Saudi prisoners, at least two of whom were believed to have trained in al-Qa'ida camps.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=537952
Interesting link in your post @ #2075, thanks. The story is a little hard to follow, but I think I got it. All of the Brits were in Saudi Arabia some time ago. At some point one of the Brits got blown up in a car bomb and the Sayowedis, for reasons unknown, framed the other remaining Brits, tortured them, got confessions, and sentenced them to cruceifixion, followed by beheading. Then they use the Brits like gambling chips to get prisoners out of Gitmo, and it worked? Weird.
I'm glad the Brits are out of danger, but worried about the release of Gitmo prisoners. It isn't easy to get sent to Gitmo in the first place. The prisoners there must be the worst of the worst to have been sent there.