LONDON, Jan 25: The last four British detainees freed from the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay flew home on Tuesday and faced questioning by British police, despite demands from family and lawyers for their immediate release.
A British military plane brought the four Muslim men back across the Atlantic, accompanied by anti-terrorist police, medics and observers from the Muslim community. It landed at RAF Northolt air base west of London at dusk.
Their release ends a diplomatically awkward situation for Prime Minister Tony Blair, but leaves open the question of why it took so long. Mr Blair is also under pressure for the imprisonment without trial of 11 foreign nationals in Britain under post Sept. 11 anti-terrorism laws - detentions the country's highest court last month declared illegal and campaigners dub "Britain's Guantanamo".
Police said the four men - Richard Belmar, 25, Moazzam Begg, 36, Feroz Abbasi, 23 and Martin Mubanga, 29 - were carried by a Royal Air Force C-17 plane with a "basic level of comfort", and would be detained when they arrived in London.
Washington says the men are potentially dangerous terrorists who trained in camps run by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan or had contacts with militants in Pakistan. Five other British detainees came home last year complaining of abuse and were briefly held by police before being freed.
Lawyers for the four who arrived on Tuesday have never seen or spoken to them, and said their further detention in Britain would add insult to injury. -Reuters
