Guantanamo inmate told: You can't return to UK, you've been away too long

[struggle4progress]

Source: The Independent

By Ben Russell, Political Correspondent
Published: 15 June 2007

~snip~ Campaigners .... warned that Mr Banna, a refugee whose wife and five children live in north London, could face detention or torture if he is sent back to his native Jordan when he is released.

Mr Banna's son, Anas, 10, will deliver a letter to Gordon Brown today, asking the prime minister-in-waiting to let his father return home for Father's Day on Sunday. Anas asked Mr Brown: "I hope you won't say that my dad was away from the country for more than two years as they say. My dad was only out of the country because he was locked up over there. They stopped him from coming back to us. Now my Dad can leave and we hope he comes back to us. I hope he comes back to us before 17 June, before Father's Day. Every year this day is very sad for us. I hope that this year, this day will be the best day of my life."

Mr Banna was arrested in The Gambia in 2002 with another former Guantanamo detainee, Bisher al-Rawi, who has been freed. The two men had travelled to west Africa to set up a peanut processing plant but were arrested and taken to Afghanistan and Guantanamo after an MI5 tip-off. ~snip~

US military authorities have cleared Mr Banna for release from Guantanamo Bay but John Reid, the Home Secretary, has refused to confirm that he will be allowed to return to Britain when he is freed. Instead, a parliamentary written reply from Liam Byrne, the Immigration minister, cast doubt on Mr Banna's right to return to Britain. It said: "Mr Banna was recognised as a refugee by the UK in 1997 and was granted indefinite leave to remain in 2000. That leave has now lapsed." ~snip~


Read more: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2659695.ece

[HuffleClaw]

1. meep

absolutely disgusting. appalling.

[sutz12]

2. Is it just me, or is this double speak that would make Orwell proud?

"Mr Banna was recognised as a refugee by the UK in 1997 and was granted indefinite leave to remain in 2000. That leave has now lapsed." ~snip~

How does "indefinite leave" lapse? :shrug:

[Kagemusha]

3. By revoking it, obviously.

But they don't want to use the word revoked.

[magellan]

4. As the wife of a Brit, I had indefinite leave to remain in the UK

...until we moved here and I failed to return to the UK for a specific number of days each year to hang onto my residency. But that was my choice as we don't foresee moving back to the UK. Banna was held against his will in a foreign prison. It should matter that he's finally being released without charge, but it seems British Home Secretary Reid is as given to Bush**'s inhumane leanings as bLiar.

[Eugene]

6. Not only was he in prison, MI5 helped to put him there.

MI5 tried to recruit Banna as a paid informant. He declined.
MI5 wrote a memo that Banna possessed a potential bomb
component that was actually a battery charger. That
information got Banna arrested in Africa and enventually
shipped to Guantanamo Bay.

Related news article: Gitmo Detainee Fears Returning to Jordan - AP, May 25, 2007

[EFerrari]

5. Oh my god.

:mad: