Guantanamo Release Bid

THE Government has requested the release of five former UK residents – at least one with Birmingham links – being held in Guantanamo Bay.

The Foreign Secretary and Home Secretary are seeking the release of the men who were legally resident in the UK before their detention.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband has written to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to formally make the request.

The men, named as Shaker Aamer, Jamil El Banna, Omar Deghayes, Binyam Mohamed and Abdennour Sameur, are not UK nationals but had been granted refugee status, indefinite leave or exceptional leave to remain before they were detained.

One of the men, 38-year-old Shaker Aamer – who is married to a British woman and has four young British children – has been held at the US base on Cuba for more than five years.

His wife and children now live in London but were in Birmingham at the time of his arrest.

Mr Aamer has indefinite leave to remain in the UK and was applying for British citizenship when he was detained in Afghanistan while working for a Saudi Arabian charity, according to his lawyers.

(c) 2007 Evening Mail; Birmingham (UK). Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.