Britain asks U.S. to release British residents from Guantanamo

LONDON -- Britain's new Prime Minister Gordon Brown asked the United States on Tuesday to free five British residents from the military prison at Guantanamo Bay -- a policy reversal that was welcomed by the Bush administration.

The United States has been working to reduce the detainee population at Guantanamo with an eye toward closing the controversial detention center.

In some cases where a detainee is likely to be mistreated in their native country, the Bush administration has been appealing to nations with respected human rights records to take the Guantanamo Bay detainees it does not intend to try in U.S. military courts.

U.S. officials said Tuesday that Brown's decision to ask for the transfer of non-British nationals was a positive step in broader efforts to cut the number of inmates and eventually shut Guantanamo.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the British request was already being reviewed and encouraged Britain and other nations to accept more detainees.

"This request is for five," he said. "If there is a desire for the U.K. government to look at more than five, of course we would entertain that, just as we would with any other country making a request."

Proponents of closing Guantanamo Bay offered similar sentiments.

"The UK's decision to accept its legal residents is an important step forward," New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement. "At the same time, Human Rights Watch continues to urge the UK and other EU member states to help resettle other detainees who may not have a legal claim to residency, but who cannot return to their home countries."

Since 2002, the U.S. has transferred about 400 detainees from Guantanamo to more than two dozen countries. In some cases, however, the U.S. has not been able to transfer the prisoners to their home countries because it hasn't been able to secure the assurances required by American law that they would not be mistreated. The State Department has struggled to find third countries willing to accept Guantanamo prisoners and able to provide the legally required assurances.

Tuesday's request by Brown's government contrasts with Tony Blair's refusal for years to intervene in many Guantanamo cases. Brown has been trying to distance himself from Blair -- particularly in regard to his predecessor's actions in Iraq.

Blair's government chose only to secure the release of nine British citizens and one resident who had provided help to British intelligence services. It refused to intervene in the plight of other British residents, saying as recently as March that it could not help people who were not citizens.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice requesting the release, the Foreign office said Tuesday. It said U.S. steps to reduce the number of detainees at Guantanamo prompted a review of the British government's approach.

The men -- Saudi Shaker Aamer, Jordanian Jamil el-Banna, Libyan-born Omar Deghayes, Ethiopian national Binyam Mohamed and Algerian Abdennour Sameur -- had all been granted refugee status, indefinite leave or exceptional leave to remain in Britain before they were detained, the statement said.

The government has warned the men's relatives it expects negotiations to take several months.

McCormack stressed that any transfers from Guantanamo would depend on assurances that the detainees would be secured but not mistreated.

"We don't want to be the world's jailers," McCormack said. "At the same time, we also don't want to see very dangerous people allowed to walk the streets freely so they can pose a threat to our citizens as well as others."

"We see this as a major change in the government's position. Prior to this, they were not calling for the release of the British residents," said Moazzam Begg, a Briton who was detained at Guantanamo Bay for two years before being released in 2005.

"There are children that have never seen their fathers. There are parents who died while their children have been locked away," he said. "But finally there seems to be some light at the end of a very long tunnel."

Five Britons were freed in March 2004 and four in January 2005, the Foreign Office said.

Bisher al-Rawi, a 37-year-old Iraqi national and British resident, was released from the camp in April after five years in detention. But British officials only took up his case after it was disclosed he had assisted MI5, Britain's domestic spy agency.

"This change of policy is extremely welcome, especially if it signals a bigger change of approach on both sides of the Atlantic," said James Welch, legal director of the civil rights group Liberty. "Surely the U.S. and U.K. governments need no further evidence that internment, kidnap and torture have been completely counterproductive in the struggle against terrorism."

Britain's Foreign Office said that, of the five detainees it wants freed, only el-Banna has been cleared for release. The Pentagon could not immediately clarify the status of the four other men.

Britain will "take all necessary measures to maintain national security" when the men return, the Foreign Office said, but refused to say whether they would be subject to control orders, a form of house arrest used to monitor terrorism suspects.

El-Banna was arrested with al-Rawi by Gambian authorities in November 2002 and transferred to U.S. detention, Amnesty International said. It said Deghayes and Aamer were captured in Pakistan in 2002.

Aamer had been instrumental at one point in trying to settle a 2005 hunger strike at the prison, the human rights group Reprieve said. Aamer, who speaks fluent English, was later placed in solitary confinement when agreements negotiated with U.S. jailers broke down, said Cori Crider, a Guantanamo case worker for Reprieve.

Reprieve says Mohamed was captured in Pakistan in April 2002 and held in Morocco for 18 months before being sent to Guantanamo. Amnesty International said the circumstances of Sameur's detention were not immediately clear.

---

Associated Press Writers Matt Lee in Washington and Ben Fox in San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.