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LONDON - The families of five former British residents incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay for up to five years were celebrating after learning they could be going home within months.
The end of their ordeal was in sight after the British Government formally requested the release of the five men, who had been living legally in the United Kingdom before they were picked up abroad by the American authorities.
All nine British nationals held in the notorious United States military base in Cuba were returned to Britain by 2005, but Tony Blair had refused to intervene on behalf of another group of men legally resident in the UK before their detention.
But the new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, raised their plight in talks last week with US President George W. Bush. He was encouraged by signs that the White House is moving towards closing the camp.
David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, and Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, have written to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, to ask for their release.
The issue was also brought to a head by a High Court instruction to the Home Office to decide by today whether one of the men, Jamil El Banna, would be allowed to return to live in the UK following his release.
The others are Shaker Aamer, Omar Deghayes, Binyam Mohamed and Abdennour Sameur. All are originally from the Middle East or north Africa and had been granted permission to stay in the UK. All had vigorously denied any involvement with terrorism and some claimed they had been tortured. Another UK resident, Iraqi-born Bisher al-Rawi, a business associate of El Banna, was released from Guantanamo earlier this year. He reportedly co-operated with the British security services before his arrest.
Ten-year-old Anas El Banna, who wrote to Blair pleading for help in getting his father home, told the BBC: "All I have been told is that my dad is coming back."
He said the family had received a hand-delivered letter yesterday telling them the Government was seeking his father's release.
The US Ambassador to London, Robert Tuttle, said: "We will take the request to release them and study it very seriously and get back with all due, deliberate speed," he told BBC Radio 4's The World at One.
- Independent
