Britain's five Guantanamo detainees fly home today

Five of the nine British nationals held by the US in Guantanamo Bay are expected to fly home to the UK today.

Home Secretary David Blunkett confirmed yesterday that the five – Tarek Dergoul, from London, Jamal Al Harith, from Manchester, and Rhuhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul, all from Tipton in West Midlands – would return to Britain within the next 24 hours. According to reports, the five will arrive at RAF Northolt in Middlesex and will be moved for questioning by counter-terrorism officers.

The four Britons remaining in custody in Cuba – Feroz Abbasi, Richard Belmar, and Martin Mubanga, all from London, and Moazzam Begg, form Birmingham – are being treated differently because they were arrested inside the Afghan combat zone, Mr Blunkett said.

Guantanamo Bay's Camp Delta holds around 660 people. US authorities allege that all the detainees, who are being held without trial, are members of Taleban or Al Qaida. Some of the internees removed from Afghanistan have now been interned for two years.

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have been highly critical of the US for detaining people in conditions which "may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment".

The human rights groups point out that none of the detainees have been granted prisoner of war status or brought before a 'competent tribunal' to determine their status, as required by Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention.

US government officials refer to the detainees as "enemy combatants" or "terrorists", and, according to an Amnesty International spokesperson, by so doing the US are "flouting their right to be presumed innocent and illegally presuming justification for the denial of many of their most basic human rights".

(gmcg)