He added, “I would also like to thank all my solicitors: Gareth Pierce, Zachary Katznelson, Clive Stafford Smith and Brent Mickum, who have all helped me and my family … I can’t thank them enough. I feel they understand my situation and I will never forget everything they have done for me.”
Contrary to US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s claim that all the Guantánamo Bay prisoners were seized on the battlefield in Afghanistan, Jamil and his friend Bisher Al Rawi 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 Jamil and Bisher and turned them over to the US authorities. They took them first to Afghanistan and then to Guantánamo Bay.
Jamil’s 10-year-old son, Anas, sent letters repeatedly to Tony Blair asking him to bring his father home. Those letters were passed to the Foreign Office for reply, but for five years the stated policy of the UK towards Anas’ father remained unchanged.
Under pressure from court proceedings being brought on his behalf in the UK, the British government agreed to intervene to secure Bisher’s release. However, the government continued to refuse to help Jamil, claiming it had no responsibility for him because he is not a British national, just a British resident. The British nationality of his five children did not change the government’s stance. In March 2007, Bisher returned to the UK and was reunited with his family, and in August the government finally intervened on Jamil’s behalf, requesting his return and that of four other British residents.
Jamil’s long ordeal did not come to an end on his return to the UK. As the plane carrying him home from Guantanamo landed, both Jamil and his fellow prisoner Omar Deghayes were arrested, following a Spanish extradition request, based on long-discredited allegations about the men’s involvement in terrorism.
Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s Director, explained on Newsnight that he had tried to encourage a Spanish extradition request as an “elegant way” of getting the men out of Guantánamo, but that the authorities in Madrid had never showed any interest. “The idea now that they want to use this evidence we have proved to be false to take them for further detention is very worrying,” he added.
Jamil and Omar were released on bail on 21 December, but the extradition request was still hanging over them. On 14 February their lawyers – including Clive Stafford Smith – submitted medical reports which analyzed in detail their precarious mental state, revealing that both men were suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
On 3 March, Judge Baltasar Garzón, the Spanish judge responsible for the extradition request, finally agreed to shelve the charges, acknowledging that both men were so damaged by their experiences that their very recovery was “uncertain”, and that as a result they were incapable of defending themselves in any potential trial.
“We are thrilled to hear that Judge Garzón has done the right thing and dropped his request for the extradition of Jamil and Omar,” Zachary Katznelson, Reprieve’s Legal Director, explained. “These men suffered horrors for years at the hands of the United States. They never had a trial of any type, yet they served more than five years in a brutal prison. It is now time to let them rebuild their lives here in the UK – it’s where their families are and it’s where they call home.”
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