A British resident who has been detained by the US military in Guantanamo Bay since 2002 has been transferred to Uganda by the US – and the British government has done nothing to help him.
Campaigners for British residents still being held in Guantanamo are concerned over the safety of Jamal Abdullah Kiyemba, who grew up in Britain. He considers himself British and has family here.
Jamal was seized by the Pakistani military in March 2002 and interrogated by them and the US for three weeks. He was then illegally transferred into US custody and shipped off to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, then on to Guantanamo Bay.
During his detention he was visited by MI5 agents who told him he could return to Britain. But the British government refused to intervene and home secretary Charles Clarke has now issued an order banning him indefinitely from Britain.
Jackie Chase of the Save Omar group, which campaigns for Omar Deghayes and other British Guantanamo detainees, condemned Clarke’s decision.
“The home secretary’s banning order is astonishing,” she said. “Our government says Guantanamo is an ‘anomaly that must end’, but it is behaving as though it would prefer people like Jamal and Omar to simply disappear.”
For more information on the campaign go to www.save-omar.org.uk
Strikers are demanding an unallocated €1.6 billion go towards workers' pay rise
London march on 27 October
Another day of mass resistance
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