Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian-born refugee with British residency, was released from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo, Cuba — and put on a chartered plane heading to a British military base in the early morning today.
He is being accompanied on the flight “by officers from the Metropolitan Police Counter-terrorism Command, a uniformed police escort team and a doctor”, but is not expected to be detained once he arrives in the U.K., according to a report by The Times of London. He will reportedly report regularly to U.K. police and will be kept under surveillance, but will be able to live at home. At one time he was accused — perhaps without sufficient basis, it now appears — of working with others [including Jose Padilla] while in Pakistan on the construction of an “improvised radioactive bomb” or a “dirty bomb” that would be detonated in the U.S.
Arrested at Karachi airport Pakistan on 10 April 2002 while attempting to fly out using a fake or false passport — he said his had been lost — Mohamed has since “been held in US custody for a total of eight years”, according to the report in The Times published here — first in Pakistan, then taken in extraordinary rendition to Morocco, Afghanistan, and, finally, September 2004, in Guantanamo.
His detention was never reviewed by a court or tribunal.
Continue reading Released Guantanamo detainee accuses U.S. and U.K. and Morocco of torture