Ahmed Belbacha

Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, looks at the US authorities’ recent underhand attempts to return cleared prisoners from Guantánamo to regimes where they face the risk of torture, despite US court orders preventing their enforced repatriation. For many of the prisoners at Guantánamo, the forthcoming US Presidential election holds little promise of change. [...]

It doesn’t take much investigation to discover that Algeria has a bleak human rights record, which is one of the reasons that, until last week, when 49-year old Mustafa Hamlili and 28-year old Abdul Raham Houari were freed from Guantánamo, no Algerian prisoners had been repatriated. This was in spite of the fact that at [...]

Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, explains why news that four British residents are to be released from Guantánamo provides grounds for cautious celebration, but also points out that two British residents will not be coming home. I was at a mosque in Glasgow [...]

On 6 August, just before the British government announced that it was asking for the return of five British residents in Guantánamo (Shaker Aamer, Jamil El-Banna, Omar Deghayes, Binyam Mohamed and Abdulnour Sameur), I wrote a letter to the Foreign Secretary David Miliband asking the government to act on behalf of another British resident, Ahmed [...]

In a resounding break with the policies of Tony Blair, the new British government, led by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, has announced that it has requested the return of five British residents in Guantánamo: Shaker Aamer, Jamil El-Banna, Omar Deghayes, Binyam Mohamed (aka al-Habashi) and Abdulnour Sameur. According to a Press Association report, “The Foreign [...]

The following is the text of a letter that I have just emailed to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith (smithjj@parliament.uk) and Foreign Secretary David Miliband (milibandd@parliament.uk), regarding the prospect of Ahmed Belbacha’s imminent return to Algeria, where he is at risk of torture. I’ll let you know if I receive any response, but in the meantime [...]

Horrible news from British human rights group Cageprisoners, which announces in a press release that Guantánamo detainee and British resident Ahmed Belbacha is to be forcibly repatriated to Algeria, the country of his birth, following refusals by a US federal judge, and by the British government, to intervene on his behalf. Belbacha, who is 37 [...]

Fears that the governments of both the US and the UK are conspiring to break international safeguards preventing the return of prisoners held without charge or trial to their home countries –- where they face a serious risk of torture and abuse –- have gained prominence in the last few days. On Saturday, I wrote [...]