Cases: Bisher Al Rawi (Guantánamo Bay)
Grabbed in the Gambia
Bisher Al Rawi and his entire family lived in Britain for years, after escaping Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq. The only reason Bisher did not take out British nationality was that, one day, he hoped to return to Iraq and reclaim his family’s property.
Contrary to US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s claim that all the Guantánamo Bay prisoners were seized on the battlefield of Afghanistan, Bisher and his friend Jamil El Banna were grabbed in the Gambia, some 500 miles further from Kabul than London. They had gone there with Bisher’s brother to set up a mobile peanut processing plant. The family had invested £250,000 in the project, but the money was stolen by the Gambian authorities, who seized Bisher and Jamil and turned them over to the US authorities. They took them first to Afghanistan and then to Guantánamo Bay.
The US insists that Bisher took a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ device with him to Gambia. It turns out this was nothing more than a battery charger, as his UK lawyer Gareth Peirce has proved by going to a high street retailer to buy one.
Under pressure from court proceedings being brought on his behalf in the UK, the British Government agreed to intervene to secure Bisher’s release.
In March 2007, Bisher returned to the UK and was reunited with his family.
Bisher and Jamil are represented by Reprieve's Legal Director, Clive Stafford Smith, by Reprieve’s Senior Counsel, Zachary Katznelson, and by G Brent Mickum from Washington DC. In Britain, Bisher and Jamil are represented by Gareth Pierce.
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