UK residents released from Guantanamo are first and foremost victims
- Published on 20/12/2007
We welcome the news that three United Kingdom residents who were being held at the US military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have returned to the UK - and urge they be treated "first and foremost as victims".
The men - Jamil el-Banna, Omar Deghayes and Abdennour Sameur - have been held without charge or trial at Guantanamo for over four years, during which time family members and human rights groups have been barred from seeing them.
"Were pleased to see these men finally coming out of the oppressive conditions at Guantanamo and able to reunite with their families after years of illegal captivity," says our UK section Director Kate Allen.
"As we have said before, if there is any evidence of wrongdoing from these individuals then legal proceedings against them should be considered.
"But the Guantanamo returnees should be treated first and foremost as victims of a serious miscarriage of justice - having suffered rendition, secret detention and alleged torture," she says.
"Guantanamo is a travesty of justice. It's important that the government speaks out about the hundreds of men still held there. These men must not become Guantanamo's forgotten prisoners.
"Government ministers should unequivocally condemn the practice of rendition and secret detention - both of which have fed the system at Guantanamo in the past six years."
Recent reports that Mr El-Banna, Mr Deghayes and Mr Sameur were to be released from the prison camp also included news that another UK resident, Shaker Abdur Raheem Aamer, would be released back to his native Saudi Arabia.
We have long campaigned for the fair trial or safe release of all prisoners at Guantanamo - about 290 people are still being held at the camp.
We are campaigning for the closure of the Guantanamo detention centre, and the disclosure of all other secret prison camps run by the US Administration in the name of counter-terrorism.
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