Guantanamo Inmates Back in Britain

The last four British inmates of the U.S.-run prison at Guantanamo Bay landed on English soil Tuesday, and authorities immediately detained them for questioning under British law.

After three years in U.S. custody at the Navy base in Cuba, Moazzam Begg of Birmingham, Feroz Abbasi of Croydon and Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar of London faced at least one night in London’s Paddington Green police station. There they were to undergo medical examinations while authorities weighed whether to hold them longer.

British television gave live coverage to their landing in a C-17 military transport plane in a London suburb. Bundled off the aircraft out of view of cameras, the four were taken to the high-security facility in a convoy of police vans.

In a sign of the political sensitivity of the detainees’ conditions, Muslim clerics were allowed to accompany them from Cuba, and cameras recorded the journey to document that they were treated humanely.

American officials contended that the four had been in Afghanistan as “enemy combatants” just before the U.S.-led assault on the South Asian nation in 2001 that ousted the Taliban regime.

U.S. forces seized Abbasi, 24, in Afghanistan. Mubanga, 32, was captured in the African nation of Zambia, where he had relatives, and Belmar, 25, and Begg, 37, were found in Pakistan. They all have denied guilt, and Begg and Mubanga have alleged that they were abused and tortured at U.S. hands.

Their fate had become a cause celebre for rights activists and much of the Muslim community, which represents about 5% of Britain’s population.

Protesters rallied outside the police station and laid a wreath Tuesday night as the men were brought in.

They demanded that the men be released to their families at once and that Britain also work to free from Guantanamo five noncitizens who are legal British residents.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose government negotiated with the Bush administration for the releases, argued that British citizens should be subject to British law rather than being held indefinitely in Cuba.

The first five of the nine British inmates in Guantanamo had been transported to Britain last March and were granted full release within a day of their return to their homeland.

Begg’s father, Azmat, a retired banker who campaigned tirelessly for his son’s release, said as he watched the plane land that it was an “exciting moment” and he hoped they could be reunited today.

Azmat Begg said his son went to Afghanistan with his family to start a school and then drilled wells to provide water to poor communities, and that he was not involved in terrorism. When he sees his son, he said, “I will welcome him back and tell him that I love him.”

Janet Stobart of The Times’ London Bureau contributed to this report.