Five Gitmo detainees to be freed
LONDON, England -- U.S. authorities say they will release four remaining Britons and an Australian held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States holds those it suspects of terrorist activities.
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Tuesday the four Britons would be returned "in the next few weeks." A statement from the Pentagon said the timing "remains under discussion."
"Once they are back in the UK, the police will consider whether to arrest them under the Terrorism Act 2000 for questioning in connection with possible terrorist activity," Straw said.
Across the Atlantic, the U.S. Defense Department said it would transfer the five men to their respective governments.
"These detainees are enemy combatants who had been detained by the United States in accordance with the laws of war and U.S. law," the Pentagon said in a statement.
"The governments of the United Kingdom and Australia have accepted responsibility for these individuals and will work to prevent them from engaging in or otherwise supporting terrorist activities in the future."
Originally, the United States held nine British citizens at its Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. London asked in 2003 for the return of all nine, and in March 2004, the United States released five of them.
Straw said "intensive and complex discussions to address U.S. security concerns" continued since that time to secure the release of remaining four.
The detention of Britons at Guantanamo Bay has been a source of tension between the United States and Great Britain, but Straw said he understood Washington's reluctance to release any of those detained there.
"Approximately 200 have been released from Guantanamo Bay," he told the British House of Commons, "and the United States believes that a number of detainees so released have returned to terrorism."
The Australian -- Mamdouh Habib -- will be sent home even though the United States believes he knew of plans for the September 11 attacks, Australia's attorney general said Tuesday.
"The United States government has now advised that it does not intend to bring charges against Mr. Habib," Philip Ruddock told reporters in Sydney.
"In these circumstances, the government has requested Mr. Habib's repatriation to Australia (and) the United States has agreed to our request."
Habib was captured near the Pakistan-Afghan border and has been held at Guantanamo Bay for three years.
His release will leave only one Australian at Guantanamo Bay: David Hicks, a 29-year-old convert to Islam, who was arrested in Afghanistan in late 2001, The Associated Press reported.
Hicks was among the first small group of Guantanamo Bay detainees to be charged, AP said.
Lawsuit filed
The British detainees -- Moazzam Begg from Birmingham and Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar, all from the London area -- will be questioned by British police upon their return.
Begg's father, Azmat, has been a central figure in the campaign to free his son, shuttling between his home in Birmingham and the United States.
Last year, Moazzam Begg said he had been subjected to "vindictive torture" and death threats by U.S. authorities.
In a handwritten letter declassified by U.S. officials, he said he had witnessed the deaths of two fellow detainees "at the hands of U.S. military personnel" in Afghanistan.
In the first communication from a serving Guantanamo detainee, Begg, 36, wrote he had been tortured while listening to the "terrifying screams" of other inmates.
The five other Britons detained in Afghanistan late in 2001 were released from the U.S. naval base in Cuba in March last year and were not charged with any offense in Britain.
Four of them -- Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith -- have filed a lawsuit in a U.S. court seeking $10 million each in damages, The Associated Press reported.
Three of them -- Rasul, Iqbal and Ahmed -- also claimed in a 115-page dossier that they had been tortured and mistreated at the U.S. prison camp, the UK's Press Association said.
Azmat Begg spoke to British television about his son's imminent release.
"First thing, I would like him to be medically and mentally examined. And if he has got charges against him, he should stand trial."
He said he would expect his son to be released without trial if he had done nothing wrong, like previously released detainees, but he added: "If they have got any evidence against him, of course he should be tried in a court of law like any other person."
The United States holds about 550 non-U.S. citizens at Guantanamo. Only four have been charged, Reuters reported.
Copyright 2005 CNN. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
