Torture by Default

Blair and the Guantánamo 8 - the struggle of Reprieve to free the British residents languishing outside the law.

There are eight British residents in Guantánamo Bay.  Bisher al Rawi has lived just outside London for 18 years, since his family fled Saddam Hussein.  Jamil el Banna has five British children  awaiting his release; Shaker Aamer has four.  Omar Deghayes’ father was murdered by Col. Gaddafi, before the family turned to this country for protection in 1986.  Ahmed Errachidi spent 18 years as a chef in London.  Binyam Mohamed lived in Kensington before the Americans rendered him to Morocco for 18 months of torture, where his interrogators took a razor blade to his penis.  We do not know a lot about Ahmed Ben Bacha and Abdelnour Sameur, as the Americans have not allowed anyone – let alone a lawyer -- to see them for four years. 

The British government, in line with virtually unanimous world opinion, has consistently condemned the endless, lawless and – according to the U.N. last week -- torturous detention of the prisoners in Guantánamo.  Since human rights apply by definition to all humans, it stands to reason that the Government would strongly support the right of all prisoners to a fair trial.  This might seem doubly obvious in the case of people who have lived in Britain, peaceably, for up to two decades. 

Would that it were true.   There was a ninth British resident in Guantánamo, my client Jamal Kiyemba, who was released two weeks ago.   He has lived in Britain since he was 14.  His life was not easy – his mother moved to Britain, leaving him to a father in Uganda who was then killed in an accident.  Jamal was shuttled back and forth until he finally found a home here.  He went to school and university here, studying pharmacy. The Guantánamo guards thought he was British; but for a piece of paper, he was. 

At Reprieve, we have struggled to help Jamal and the other British residents for many months.   I had hoped, with all due naivety, that the Government would be keen to assist our efforts on behalf of these all-but-Britons, and I wrote to the Home Office asking for help bringing the prisoners home.  Mr. Clarke first chose the role of Pontius Pilate, washing his hands rather than standing up for a principle.  It took three months, but we eventually received a reply saying that a resident who stays out of the country for more than two years has no right to return.

I was astonished.  Jamal and the other prisoners had only been out of the country for over two years because they were held in Guantánamo, illegally and involuntarily.  I wrote again, asking for an urgent meeting.  It was urgent because the prisoners were being subjected to terrible abuses.  Seven months went by this time without any response at all.  My mother would call that bad manners.

On February 9^th, Jamal was released from Guantánamo, because the Americans had determined, officially, that he was no threat to anyone.  But he was sent to Uganda not Britain.   The moment it happened, I did finally receive a communication from Mr. Clarke:  “You should . . . be aware that the Home Secretary has personally directed that [Mr. Kiyemba] should be excluded from the UK on grounds of national security.”

Through this message, Clarke metamorphosed from Pilate into Judas Iscariot, betraying everything he should respect.  First, he betrayed Jamal, who would never be allowed to come home to see his mother, his brothers, and his friends. Second, Clarke betrayed his principles:  Far from assisting the British residents prisoners who were being tortured, he had stabbed them in the back. 

Third, Clarke betrayed the Law Lords, who recently barred the use of torture evidence in official decision-making:  While Clarke has not had the decency to tell Jamal the basis for this ban, he indubitably relied on evidence abused out of Jamal by the American military.  Neither does Clarke allow Jamal the right of reply.  If Jamal was able to convince a American military tribunal that he posed no threat, presumably he could convince even a British politician, if only he were allowed the chance. 

Clarke’s actions are despicable, of course, but this is merely an example of how the new Blair terror rules operate.  The Government now claims the right to ban anyone who it “suspects” to be an “international terrorist”, defined as including any person who “has links with a person who is a member of, or belongs to, an international terrorist group.”  Jamal was in Guantánamo, so he clearly has “links” to 500 people identified, rightly or wrongly, by the Americans as terrorists.  I represent more than 40 Guantánamo prisoners, so that puts me in the same boat -- or cell.

In seeking to propagate the rule of law around the world, the Government’s first stratagem was to create indefinite detention without trial in Belmarsh.   In opposing the ‘anomaly’ of Guantánamo, the Government’s next plan was to refuse any help to the prisoners with ties to Britain who are held there.  In opposing torture, the Government’s new idea is to use torture evidence to bar Jamal Kiyemba from this country, without telling him what the evidence is, let alone offering him the chance to refute it.  This is as foolish as it is offensive.  The most effective counter-terrorism measure is the consistent enforcement of human rights -- hardly a novel idea, but one that “New Labour” appears to be unable to grasp.

If Omar Deghayes is not allowed to return to Brighton – where the council has voted overwhelmingly to welcome him home – the Libyan delegation that visited Guantánamo in 2004 has already promised that he will be tortured and killed there.  If Shaker Aamer is forced to go to Saudi Arabia, his four little children may never see him again.  If Bisher al Rawi is forced to go to Iraq, who knows what will happen to him. 

At least Clarke has warned us what he plans to do.  The other eight British residents need our help now to prevent a repetition of Jamal Kiyemba’s fate.