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Detainees were eventually released after up to six years – all have denied wrongdoing and none have faced charges
Feroz Abbasi
Feroz Abbasi was 24 when he became the first British national to be detained in Guantánamo in January 2002. Born in Uganda and brought up in south London from the age of eight, Abbasi's interest in his Muslim faith is said to have been rekindled as a teenager. He was reportedly captured in Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, along with a number of other foreign men who had been fighting for the Taliban. In November 2003, according to his file, the Guantánamo authorities alleged Abbasi was "a confirmed member of al-Qaida, who has received advanced training and who has pledged to martyr himself in jihad against the West and the US in particular". He was released in January 2005 and has not faced any charges in the UK since. The Court of Appeal said it found Abbasi's detention legally objectionable.
Shafiq Rasul
Shafiq Rasul was one of the so-called Tipton Three, detained in Afghanistan in November 2001. According to the Guantánamo files he was sent to the camp the following February "because of his knowledge of al-Qaida recruiting efforts in England and knowledge concerning the Arab units fighting for the Taliban". Described as a "disruptive and occasionally aggressive" prisoner, he was recommended for release in August 2003, "based on the assessment that detainee was not a member of the Taliban or affiliated with al-Qaida or other extremist organisation". Two months later, the authorities changed their minds and claimed he was a dangerous man who, if set free, "would return to Islamic extremism and its terrorist roots". He has denied any wrongdoing. After being released without charge the following year, Rasul returned to the West Midlands and picked up his life.
Asif Iqbal
Asif Iqbal was sent to Guantánamo along with his two friends from the Midlands after being captured in northern Afghanistan. In October 2003, the US extended his detention because it claimed he had "failed to be forthright or co-operative" during interrogation and had, on occasion, "been remarkably arrogant" and even "expressed his hatred for Americans". Iqbal was also guilty of refusing "to divulge what he knows about the individuals who facilitated his recruitment in the United Kingdom" and was said to have failed a lie detector test. Another consideration, for those considering the threat he was said to have posed, was that he was believed to have attended a rally in Afghanistan "at which Bin Laden himself spoke". After being released in 2004, he and his friends prepared a file for US senators in which they complained of being repeatedly punched, kicked, slapped, forcibly injected, deprived of sleep, hooded and photographed while naked.
Ruhal Ahmed
Ruhal Ahmed, the third of the Tipton Three, remained in Guantánamo because, although he has "been generally co-operative" his interrogators claimed he had lied to them. "The detainee revivals [sic] in the twists and tums he applies to his stories and boldly challenges his interrogators, even after being confronted with the facts," they reported. "The totality of the evidence strongly suggests the detainee was an al-Qaida recruit who travelled to Afghanistan to fight the jihad against the US and who still has information concerning al-Qaida operatives in the UK." Like his two friends, Ahmed faced no charges when he was flown to the UK and has consistently denied wrongdoing. He returned to the West Midlands and has worked as a spokesman for Amnesty International.
Jamal al-Harith
Jamal al-Harith, from Manchester, converted to Islam and travelled widely in the Muslim world, before being detained by the Taliban and accused of being a British spy. After 9/11, he was seized by US special forces and sent to Guantánamo specifically to be interrogated about life as a prisoner of the Taliban. The camp authorities recommended his release the following year "based on the assessment that detainee was not affiliated with al-Qaida or a Taliban leader", and then changed their mind. According to his file, one reason for his detention was that British diplomats who had seen him in Afghanistan found him to be "cocky and evasive". After he was finally freed in 2004, Harith said that for more than two years he had been kicked, punched, slapped, shackled in painful positions, subjected to extreme temperatures, deprived of sleep, deprived of adequate water supplies and fed on rotting food. "I have never been in any kind of trouble with the law and have never engaged in any kind of fighting or planning or participating in any kind of violence or terrorist behaviour," he said.
Tarek Dergoul
Tarek Dergoul, brought up in London, lost an arm in Afghanistan during the fighting that followed 9/11. He was captured after crossing into Pakistan and turned over to US forces, who flew him to Guantánamo the following May. Dergoul's assessment file claims he told his interrogators he flew to Pakistan with a Bangladeshi friend from Whitechapel mosque in east London. He was also alleged to have received a month's training on firearms at Kabul. After his release without charge, he told one journalist he had travelled to Afghanistan not to fight but because it offered business opportunities, and had been wounded when a bomb hit a house he had considered buying. He also said that while being held at Bagram, an American medic had amputated one of his toes with insufficient painkillers while an interrogator demanded to know the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. Compared with this, he said, what happened at Guantánamo was "torture lite".
Moazzam Begg
Moazzam Begg, from Birmingham, was detained in Pakistan in 2002, and taken to Bagram, where he spent almost a year, before being rendered to Guantánamo. His file, nine months later, describes him as a "confirmed member of al-Qaida". The file also alleges that Begg is considered to be of "significant intelligence value" to the US. "Detainee has been identified as being affiliated with three extremist organisations, including al-Qaida. Detainee has admitted to attending training at al-Badr training camp near Khowst in December 1993, as well as the Harakat aI-Ansar terrorist training camp. Detainee was also an instructor at Derunta training camp, another al-Qaida supported terrorist camp. The detainee has been associated with a senior al-Qaida financier, as well as other key suspects currently under investigation by US authorities." Elsewhere in the files, Begg is said to have stated that he had been at Tora Bora, while another inmate claimed he fought alongside Begg in the conflict that followed 9/11, and that "they wanted to kill Americans and all non-Muslims". After his release in January 2005, Begg, who has denied all allegations, returned to Birmingham and wrote a critically acclaimed memoir in which he described the abuses he suffered at Bagram and Guantánamo, and his belief that one of the reasons for detaining him was that he had witnessed the murders of two detainees.
Martin Mubanga
Martin Mubanga was born in Zambia but brought up in Britain from the age of three. During 2001, he travelled to Afghanistan. After 9/11 he went to Zambia where he was detained before being flown to Guantánamo. The US claims that he had been "influenced by Omar Uthman (also known as Abu Qatada) while attending the Four Feathers mosque in London" and that he was "also influenced by Sheikh Faisal, who was encouraging all Muslims to go help their brothers in jihad in Afghanistan". The file also claims that after interrogation at Guantánamo he "admitted to the following: he is an Al-Qaida member; he fought against allied interests in Afghanistan and Bosnia; he would rejoin the fighting if he were released". When Mubanga was freed without charge, he denied any wrongdoing and described how he had been beaten, subjected to extremes of heat and cold and daubed in his own urine during interrogation. Rather than "rejoin the fighting", he successfully sued the government. Documents disclosed during the case showed that following his detention by the Zambian authorities, Tony Blair's office had intervened to ensure he was rendered to Guantánamo rather than allowed to return to the UK.
Richard Belmar
Richard Belmar, from London, converted to Islam as a teenager. In the summer of 2001, according to the Guantánamo authorities, he travelled to Afghanistan where he "received training on the AK-47, Makarov pistol, basic tactics and day/night land navigation at the al-Farouq training camp near Kandahar". In November 2003, according to his Guantánamo file, a decision was taken to hold him longer because the US authorities alleged he had sworn an oath of allegiance to Osama bin Laden, and because they believed he possessed "unexploited information" about another detainee. He was released in 2005, questioned briefly by Scotland Yard, and then released without charge. Belmar, who said he was beaten during interrogations at Guantanamo, was part of a group of former detainees who successfully sued the British government last year for damages over its role in his interrogation and torture.
Omar Deghayes
Omar Deghayes, a Libyan-born refugee who settled in Brighton, was arrested in Pakistan after fleeing Afghanistan after 9/11. His wife and children were later released. British government papers disclosed at the high court last year, after Deghayes and a number of other former Guantánamo inmates sued the British government, show he was sent to the Cuban camp after MI5 interrogators decided he was not being co-operative during questioning at Bagram. They also showed MI5 knew he was being tortured before they questioned him. He lost sight in one eye during a severe beating at Guantánamo. The files show the US claimed Deghayes was a courier for al-Qaida with links to Libyan militants.The main reason given for his transfer to Guantánamo was to extract "general-to-specific information on Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) personalities and activities within United Kingdom".His file is confused, however, stating on one page that he travelled from Afghanistan to Pakistan in late 2001, "where he was eventually arrested a couple months later", and on the following page that he was "arrested in Spain in November 2001 for extremist activities and links to an al-Qaida cell based in Spain". The former is given as a reason for sending him to Guantánamo and the latter as a reason for keeping him there. He was eventually released without in 2007 after almost six years and has denied any wrongdoing..