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Guantanamo 'nightmare' over
01/04/2007 17:40 - (SA)
London - Bisher al-Rawi, an Iraqi held at the US base in Guantanamo Bay for nearly five years, said on Sunday his "nightmare is finally at an end" in a statement issued after he returned to his residence in Britain.
He also spoke of the "hopelessness" and "extreme isolation" suffered by detainees at the US base in Cuba and asked to be granted time with his family to come to terms with his "horrific experience".
Al-Rawi was arrested in November 2002 while on a business trip to Gambia.
His mother, who has campaigned for his release, claims he was there to help his older brother Wahab set up a peanut oil processing business.
He returned to his family in New Malden, southwest London, this weekend. Asked same questions
"The hopelessness you feel in Guantanamo can hardly be described," he said in a statement released through his lawyers.
"You are asked the same questions hundreds of times. Allegations are made against you that are laughably untrue, but you have no chance to prove them wrong. There is no trial, no fair legal process.
"I was alleged to have participated in terrorist training in Bosnia and Afghanistan. "I've never been to Bosnia and the only time I visited Afghanistan was thanks to the hospitality of the CIA in an underground prison, the Dark Prison outside Kabul."
News of Al-Rawi's release was announced by Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett in a written statement to parliament last week.
Although he is not a British citizen, he was allowed to live in Britain after his immediate family fled Iraq more than 20 years ago when his father was arrested and tortured under former dictator Saddam Hussein's regime.
Clive Stafford-Smith, his lawyer, has said that Al-Rawi was showing signs of secure housing unit psychosis, which affects prisoners held in high-security compounds, after spending four years in detention.
His lawyer has described the conditions in which he was held as "worse than any death row I've ever seen".
- AFP
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