UK News 28-10-2004 Guantánamo Brits Sue USA who: Former Guantánamo Bay detainee Shafiq Rasul what: Joins three fellow British citizens in legal action against Donald Rumsfeld where: Washington DC when: Yesterday snippet: "Four Britons who claim they were repeatedly tortured at Guantánamo Bay yesterday began suing Donald Rumsfeld and other US military leaders for £6m each in compensation," says The Guardian. "In the first action of its kind, Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal al-Harith each demanded [$10million], in the suits filed in Washington DC," says the BBC. "But a Pentagon official said the allegations were false and the men were not entitled to a pay out because they had been captured in combat." "This a case about preserving an American ideal - the rule of law," says their lawyer, Eric Lewis, quoted in The Independent. "It is un-American to torture people. It is un-American to hold people indefinitely without access to counsel, courts or family. It is un-American to flout our international treaty obligations." "They are being supported by the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights," says The Telegraph`s legal editor, Joshua Rozenberg, "which said their claims were being brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act, Geneva Conventions, and Religious Freedom Restoration Act." [... more]

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