UK News 28-01-2005 28 Hours From Freedom who: British Guantánamo Bay detainees Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi, Richard Belmar and Martin Mubanga what: Released just one day after being returned to the UK where: LONDON when: Wednesday snippet: "They have all been locked up for three years, and two have been in solitary confinement for most of that time," says Louise Christian, the civil liberties lawyer representing two of the four British citizens held at Guantánamo Bay until this week. "I have represented my clients for the best part of three years. But tonight is the first time I will get to meet and talk to them - unfortunately it will be in a police station." Moazzam Begg, 36, from Birmingham, was arrested by the CIA in Islamabad in February 2002; Feroz Abbasi, 25, from Croydon, South London, was arrested in Afghanistan in January 2002; Richard Belmar, 25, from St John`s Wood, North London, was arrested in Pakistan in February 2002; and Martin Mubanga, 32, from Wembley, West London, was arrested in Zambia in March 2002, after travelling in Pakistan. All four were held without charge by the US Army in Cuba for three years or more. On Tuesday, they were returned to Britain and spent just under 28 hours in police custody at Paddington Green police station in west London before being set free. "Met police chief Sir John Stevens had said earlier that any confessions made to the US would not be admissible in a British court, without fresh admissions here," explains The Mirror. "But the Pentagon said last night it believed the four still pose a significant threat." Ms Christian, representing Mr Mubanga and Mr Abbasi, told the press that "all four were driven to separate locations, where they were expected to be reunited with their families," reports The Times. More revealingly, she told The Independent that Feroz Abbasi "has an air of unreality about him. He doesn`t know where he is. Like all victims of torture he`s finding it difficult to talk about it." "Five other British detainees were freed from Guantanamo last year and were released without charge after questioning by police in the UK," recalls the BBC. "Some later said they had been hooded and shackled to the floor in painful stress positions, and had witnessed beatings and other abuse during their time at Guantanamo." On Wednesday, home secretary Charles Clarke announced the government`s new proposals for dealing with suspected terrorists detained in Britain. A dozen foreign nationals have been interned at Belmarsh and Whitemoor prisons without charge or trial for up to three years and they can be detained indefinitely. But under the new proposals they would be electronically tagged released into what The Guardian calls "de facto house arrest". [... more]

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