| Cleared British Guantanamo Prisoner Faces Torture In Morocco After UK Government Refuses To Allow Him Back To Britain
o Meanwhile, a second cleared British resident faces life-threatening repatriation to Algeria unless the UK Government intervenes
o Reprieve urgently calls on the UK Government to allow all cleared British residents back to Britain to prevent further abuse
09.05.07
A British resident who was held in Guantanamo Bay for over five years, and released without charge last week, is to face charges in Morocco, Reprieve has learnt.
Ahmed Errachidi was forced to return to Morocco after his release from Guantanamo, despite having spent 18 years in the UK working as a chef in some of London’s top restaurants, after the British government refused to allow him back into the UK.
Today, Reprieve, which has represented Errachidi since 2005, is calling on the UK government urgently to intervene, to stop him suffering further abuse at the hands of the Moroccan penal system.
Tragically, the charges come as Ahmed Errachidi is re-united with his young family in Morocco.
Reprieve's Legal Director Clive Stafford Smith visited Ahmed in Guantanamo on numerous occasions and said:
"This is a horrifying turn of events. Ahmed has suffered five unjustified years of imprisonment in Guantanamo’s inhuman conditions, but has now been officially cleared by the Americans, confirming that he poses no security threat. There are absolutely no grounds for his arrest in Morocco.
“Moroccan jails are notorious. I have spoken to prisoners who have endured months of beatings, who have been strung up by their hands until their shoulders dislocated, who have been force-fed drugs and who have had their genitals slashed by razors. The UK government must intervene before this deeply traumatized and innocent man suffers further.”
Meanwhile, a second British resident, Ahmed Belbacha, cleared at the same time as Errachidi, remains in prison in Guantanamo facing imminent and life-threatening repatriation to Algeria unless the UK Government intervenes urgently on his behalf.
Stafford Smith continued:
“There have been indications from official Algerian sources that Mr. bel Bacha’s ‘safety cannot be guaranteed’ if he returns to that country. While the British government maintains it cannot help the British residents remaining in Guantánamo Bay, its position as been wholly invalidated by the homecoming of Reprieve’s client Bisher Al-Rawi, another resident. And there is also the minor issue of morality: How can Tony Blair stand idle by while a British resident faces persedcution? He has said he wants Guantanamo shut down. He must now stand by both precedent and principle and save two British residents from abuse.”
Reprieve’s lawyers may soon lose the right to visit Mr Belbacha in Guantanamo or to make legal claims that he needs to seek refuge elsewhere. Last week, the US DOD announced that it was clamping down on lawyer access to Guantanamo, that lawyers were being immediately barred from going pending further litigation, and that asylum claims were not a part of the lawyer’s legitimate responsibility towards clients.
Upon his return, Ahmed Errachidi issued the following statement:
“I want to thank everyone at Reprieve for working so tirelessly for me, and for everyone else in Guantanamo Bay. I want to thank all the people who supported me from Britain. I received 283 letters from people in Britain, 283 beautiful letters that gave me so much hope. I am particularly grateful to the mothers and fathers who let their young children write to me and send me the little cards they had drawn, as it was a constant reminder of my own two young boys. I am very sorry not to have written back to each and every person, but I was treated very, very badly in Guantanamo, they held me in isolation for months on end, and I did not even have a pen”
Ahmed Errachidi and Ahmed Belbacha were both cleared for release from Guantanamo in February of this year. The British residents still imprisoned in Guantanamo are: Shaker Aamer, Jamil El Banna, Saiid Farhi, Mohammed Al Qadir, Binyam Mohamed, Ahmed Belbacha, Ahmed Errachidi, Abdennour Sameur and Omar Deghayes. Not one is charged with a crime.
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