April 1, 2007: Guantanamo Detainee Bisher Al-Rawi Released, Returns to Britain

Bisher al-Rawi holding a child after release. [Source: Craig Hibbert]British resident Bisher al-Rawi is released from the Guantanamo prison after being held there for almost five years (see March 2003-November 18, 2007). He and a man named Jamil al-Banna had been arrested by the CIA in 2002 after being given information by the British intelligence agency MI5 that MI5 knew to be false (see November 8, 2002-December 7, 2002). He had worked as an informant for MI5 and they apparently wanted to pressure him to resume informing for them, but he refused. He and al-Banna were interrogated and abused in Gambia, Bagram in Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. He says, “My nightmare is finally at an end.” Al-Rawi’s lawyer says of al-Rawi’s US jailers: “Right to the end they treated him with brutality. On the way to the plane in Guantanamo—they knew he was leaving—they insisted still on shackling him, blindfolding him, putting on earmuffs so he couldn’t hear a thing and keeping him in the back of a very hot, very confined van on the way to the plane.” [BBC, 4/1/2007] Britain showed no interest in helping al-Rawi until he publicly revealed in 2006 that he had been an MI5 informant (see April 20, 2006). Then it took over a year of secret negotiations before the US and Britain came to terms for releasing him (see October 3, 2006).