Revealed: the full story of the Guantanamo Britons

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

Three British prisoners released last week from Guantanamo Bay have revealed the full extent of British government involvement in the American detention camp condemned by law lords and the Court of Appeal as a 'legal black hole

(...)

During an extraordinary 12-hour interview with The Observer last Friday, two days after their release from Paddington Green police station where they were held after being flown home from Cuba, the three men revealed that they were interrogated by MI5 almost immediately after first arriving at Guantanamo Bay - in the cases of Iqbal and Rasul, on 15 January 2002, and in Ahmed's case three weeks later.

(...)

Among other disclosures, the three men revealed:

· How early in their ordeal they survived a massacre perpetrated by Afghanistan's Northern Alliance troops who herded hundreds of prisoners into lorry containers and locked them in, so that people started to suffocate. Iqbal described how only 20 of 300 prisoners in each container lived, and then only because someone made holes in its side with a machine gun - an action which killed yet more prisoners;

· The existence of a secret super-maximum security facility outside the main part of Guantanamo's Camp Delta known as Camp Echo, where prisoners are held in tiny cells in solitary confinement 24-hours a day, with a military police officer permanently stationed outside each cell door. The handful of inmates of Camp Echo include two of the four remaining British detainees, Moazzem Begg and Feroz Abbasi, and the Australian, David Hicks;

contd:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1168976,00.html

edit -- there's actually a much fuller account:

part 1:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1168937,00.html

part 2:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1169122,00.html

[CerealMurderer]

1. Did they mention what the Brits were doing in Afghanistan

Were they there on vacation? Doing missionary work? Buying Opium?

What was their reason for hanging out with the Taliban?

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

3. You sound like you won't believe them anyway,

but here:

Rasul, 26, Ahmed, 22, and Iqbal, 22, were boyhood friends from the Midlands town of Tipton. In Septem ber 2001 they travelled to Pakistan ahead of the marriage Iqbal's parents had arranged for him to a woman in Faisalabad. Ahmed was to be best man; Rasul hoped to do a computer course after the wedding.

The three were in no sense fundamentalists: their brand of Islam, they say, was never that of the Taliban. But like many young Muslims in Pakistan they crossed the border into Afghanistan in October 2001, as it became clear that, in the wake of the 11 September attacks on America, one of the poorest countries in the world was about to be attacked. They had no intention of joining the fighting, they insist, but only of giving humanitarian aid. In England, none of them was rich, but in Asia, the little money they had could go a long way. For a short time they used the savings accumulated for their trip to buy food and medical supplies for Afghan villagers.

But in Taliban-led Afghanistan one aspect of their appearance made them dangerously visible - they had no beards. Travelling through a bombed landscape, they tried to escape in a taxi. But instead of reaching safety they were driven further into danger - to the city of Kunduz, which was promptly surrounded and bombarded by Dostum's troops. Aware that a bloodbath was imminent, they tried to leave on a convoy of trucks but their own vehicle was shelled, killing almost everyone on board. 'We were trapped,' says Iqbal. 'There was nothing we could do but give ourselves up. They took our money, our shoes, all our warm clothes, and put us in lines.'

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1168937,00.html

[CerealMurderer]

4. Of course I believe them. Why would you think otherwise?

My first guess was correct; they were on vacation and I can understand how their plight might not sell with everyone but I'll take their word for it.

My great uncle did something similar...after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor he went to Japan to give humanitarian aid knowing that an attack was imminent on Japan. He had the same problem these guys had so I can understand how common a problem this can be.

I wish them better luck in the future.

edit: respelled imminent

[KuroKensaki]

2. Disgusting.

I have no words to describe my revulsion.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. Discussion on the issue of British Gitmo detainees in FA

The thread was started Thursday with news of the release of the five men.

Please click here.