Moazzam Begg was 'captured' in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan, nowhere near the battlefield. He was taken from his house in front of his daughter and his wife. He's a British citizen. He's had 600 days in solitary......
He did not "just happen to be in the combat area of Afghanistan at the time of a major offensive" and he should not be libelled as a "muslim terrorist held in Cuba, with British connections."
With his Islamic beard he's clearly more fundamentalist than his Dad, whose a typical Asian Brit - more Brit than anything else, apart from his skin colour. But that doesn't make him a terrorist.
"Moazzam Beg, 35, from Sparkbrook, Birmingham, was arrested in Pakistan last February on suspicion of links with the Taleban regime or the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Moazzam, like his mother, was born in England; his father in India, under the British Raj. As a child, Moazzam, was by many accounts popular with school mates. Moazzam grew up in the 1970s attending a local Jewish school, chosen by his father because of its academic reputation.
After leaving school, he studied law. He helped out his father with a restaurant and opened an Islamic bookshop in the city. His father describes him as "a family man, a gentle man, an educated man".
At 12, Moazzam went to stay with relatives in Pakistan where, his father says, his interests in humanitarian work began. He performed charity work in the Asian community and told his parents that he wanted to help alleviate the suffering of fellow Muslims. In June 2001, a year before his arrest, Moazzam Begg left his home in Birmingham and moved his wife and four young children to a new life in Afghanistan. There they established a school in a remote area and worked on a project to install water pumps.
In December 2001, following the United States-led operation to remove the Taliban regime, Begg told his relatives that he was moving his family back to Pakistan. He described the situation in Afghanistan as "unbearable". The family moved to an apartment in Islamabad to wait out the strikes. They planned to return when the dust had settled. But Moazzam was arrested and the family's funds - about £8,000 - were seized, leaving Sally and the children to fend for themselves in a country where they did not speak the language.
Begg's family believe he was kidnapped in Pakistan by US authorities. He was taken to Bagram, where he was held for a year, on suspicion of passing funds to al-Qaeda and later transferred to Camp Delta. He has not seen a lawyer since he was seized."
Martin Mubanga was arrested in Zambia. Richard Belmar was captured in Pakistan. Only Feroz Abbasi was captured in Afghanistan.
In any case, what happened to:
Innocent until proven guilty.
No imprisonment without trial.
No trial without legal representation.
If there's evidence that they were traitors, or that they participated in military ops against UK forces, then let's have it and let's throw the full weight of the law at them. Otherwise, then let them go and apologise for the illegal incarceration and torture, and support any claim they make against the US for compensation.
They are British citizens or long term UK residents who have been detained without charge or trial, and who may have been tortured. It's only the fact that they've received this treatment in US hands that makes them different to other unfortunates who we wouldn't think twice about repatriating using Forces assets.
And let's be clear about what has been happening to some of those at Gitmo.
"Meanwhile, the Australian government says one of its citizens held at Guantanamo will also be released. Mamdouh Habib has been held at Guantanamo Bay for three years. He filed a lawsuit charging that in 2001 the U.S. transferred him to Egypt for 6 months, where he was electrocuted, beaten and nearly drowned. Habib alleges that while under Egyptian detention, he was hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten. Habib's case is only the second to describe a secret practice called "rendition," under which the CIA has sent suspected terrorists to be interrogated in countries where torture has been well documented. It is unclear which U.S. agency transferred him to Egypt. His was the first case to challenge the legality of the practice and could have implications for U.S. plans to send large numbers of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other countries with poor human rights records."
"Enoch Powell - Love ya man!" Says it all. It's as ignorant and as offensive as saying: "What's all this fuss about the holocaust, I was in Colindale last week and I saw loads of Jew-boys. Never 'appened....."