British Guantanamo prisoners said due home

[struggle4progress]

Sun Jan 23, 2005 03:43 AM GMT

LONDON (Reuters) - The four remaining British prisoners in the U.S. camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, will be home on Tuesday, according to the Sunday Times.

The United States said this month it would release Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga, Richard Belmer and Moazzam Begg, but did not set a date for their return.

The men have been held for three years without charge at the U.S. camp along with hundreds of other prisoners designated "unlawful combatants" and mainly captured during the war in Afghanistan in 2001-2002.

Five other British captives have already come home. Britain questioned them on their return but released them all without charge. <snip>

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=658825

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. a question for Brits

can these men, as British subjects, sue the US or certain idiviuals, like Bush, for unlawful internment?

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Yes, in the USA

four men already released are doing so (as far as I know this is still going ahead):

Four British men held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for nearly three years are suing the US government.
...
Among the defendants named are US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers.

The former detainees - three from Tipton in the West Midlands and Mr al-Harith, 37, from Manchester - filed the suits in Washington DC on Wednesday.
...
The action is being brought under the Alien Tort Claims Act, Geneva Conventions, and Religious Freedom Restoration Act, according to a statement from the Center for Constitutional Rights.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3959635.stm