Straw: Cuba Britons to be returned
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This image of detainees was released by the U.S. in 2002.
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LONDON, England (CNN) -- Five of the nine British citizens detained at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba are to be returned to Britain, the UK government says.
Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said they could be taken into custody on their arrival. The police will consider whether to arrest them under the Terrorism Act 2000 "for questioning in connection with possible terrorist activity," he said.
The nine Britons are among the 660 people who have been held at the U.S. naval base on Cuba for more than two years without being charged or having access to legal assistance.
Also Thursday, the U.S. State Department said it will release one Danish national to the Danish government.
Danish media have identified the man as Slimane Hadj Abderrahmane. He was transferred to the U.S. Naval base in Cuba in February 2001 after being captured in Afghanistan.
"Under Danish law it is not possible to put him on trial. He will come to Denmark as a free man," Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller said during a debate in parliament.
Last week, the United States returned a Spanish citizen held at Guantanamo Bay to Spain for prosecution in what a senior U.S. official said was the first transfer of its kind.
Straw told a news conference in London Thursday the British nationals would be returned to the UK "in the next few weeks."
A UK government official said the fate of the remaining four remained under discussion and it was unclear what would happen to the five when they returned to Britain.
Families of the nine Britons and six French prisoners held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay have long criticized their governments over the handling of the detainees.
Most of the detainees, who are considered terrorism suspects by Washington, were captured during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The U.S. government has been interrogating the detainees and deciding whether they will face military tribunals or be released.
Rumors the detainees might have been released before Christmas proved unfounded, dashing the hopes of relatives.
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair recently said he expected the detainees' legal status to be clarified within weeks but warned they would not be allowed back to Britain if they posed a terror risk.
Azmat Begg, a retired bank manager from the central English city of Birmingham, said last month he had not heard from his son for six months.
The families of the six French prisoners being held say they have had no assistance from their government.
Hassine Ounsi, the French Guantanamo Bay prisoners' representative, told CNN: "So far the French government has done nothing.
"When we go to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, officials tell us that different delegations go to Guantanamo and meet the prisoners, but no concrete action, (no) decision has been taken."
Human rights watchdog group Amnesty International has accused the United States of depriving the detainees of basic human rights. The accusations are disputed by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.
Amnesty says the U.S. government has arbitrarily imprisoned the detainees. Other violations the group has listed include prolonged solitary confinement, heavy shackling and lack of adequate exercise.
There have been reports of several suicide attempts by Guantanamo detainees.
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear two legal appeals over whether the detainees are being held unlawfully. It would be the first time the justices review the constitutionality of the White House's war on terror laws that followed the September 11 attacks.
The court will hear arguments sometime early this year, with a ruling expected by June. (Full story)
