Guantanamo survivor arrives back in UK
Daylife/AP Photo by Lewis Whyld
A British resident detained at Guantanamo Bay for more than four years has arrived back in the UK. Ethiopian-born Binyam Mohamed, 30, landed at RAF Northolt in London on Monday afternoon, accompanied by Metropolitan Police officers.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband said his release was the first step towards the goal of closing down the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
After he landed at 1300 GMT and walked to the terminal building surrounded by officials, he was questioned and released more than four hours later.
Mr Mohamed said in a statement: “I have to say, more in sadness than in anger, that many have been complicit in my own horrors over the past seven years. “For myself, the very worst moment came when I realised in Morocco that the people who were torturing me were receiving questions and materials from British intelligence.”
Referring to his alleged period of torture in Morocco, Mr Mohamed said: “I have met with British intelligence in Pakistan. I had been open with them. Yet the very people who I had hoped would come to my rescue, I later realised, had allied themselves with my abusers.”
Nothing like learning that a nation which officially stands for liberty and democracy is perfectly willing to turn their back on you – and their own standards – when it comes to politics and war. If in fact the US and the UK differentiate between the two.
