Detainee claims he was MI5 link man

[emad]

Sunday Times
Tony Allen-Mills



AN IRAQI-BORN Londoner held as a terrorist suspect in Guantanamo Bay has made the startling claim that he acted as a go-between for MI5 and a key Al-Qaeda figure.

Bisher al-Rawi is one of the so-called “forgotten five”, all Guantanamo detainees with strong family connections in Britain. The five were once British residents but had no citizenship papers and were excluded from the negotiations over the four British detainees whose release was announced last week.

Al-Rawi was arrested as an Al-Qaeda suspect in November 2002, allegedly because of his contacts with Abu Qatada, the extremist Islamic cleric now detained at Belmarsh high security prison, southeast London.

But in his testimony to a US military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, al-Rawi said he was only an intermediary between MI5 and the cleric. He named the three MI5 agents he dealt with as “Matthew”, “Alex” and “Martin” and called them as defence witnesses. The British government, it is claimed, refused to allow the agents to give evidence.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-1442179,00.html

[Minstrel Boy]

1. Sorry about that, old chap!

Intelligence assets have a short shelf life when they compromise their clients.

And from The Independent:

Al-Rawi's "claims follow allegations, by Islamist militants as well as French security sources, that Abu Qatada had contacts with British intelligence, which the Palestinian strongly denies."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=601396