Five British men released by the United States from a detention camp for people with alleged terrorist links were tortured and interrogated at gunpoint, it has been claimed.
A lawyer for one of the detainees held at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, dismissed newspaper allegations about the men today and insisted US 'intelligence' "was obtained as a result of a regime of torture".
Mr Greg Powell, acting for Mr Ruhal Ahmed (22), spoke out following allegations that the former detainee was a trained al-Qaeda or Taliban fighter.
He said: "It was the assessment of the US and British security services, which was considered carefully by the Home Secretary, that my client Ruhal Ahmed did not present any kind of security risk."
A US embassy spokesman has claimed that four Britons released from the Cuban detention camp were trained to use a variety of weapons in Afghanistan, according to the Sunnewspaper today. He said one Briton was taught to use an AK-47 rifle and pistol at an al-Qaeda safe house in Kabul, while three others fought with the Taliban using Kalashnikovs.
The four invididuals were not named by the spokesman but were identified by the newspaper as Mr Ahmed, Mr Asif Iqbal (22), Mr Shafiq Rasul (26), and Mr Tarek Dergoul (26).
Mr Ahmed, Mr Iqbal and Mr Rasul, all from Tipton, West Midlands, and Mr Dergoul, from Bethnal Green, east London, were released from Guantanamo Bay last week after being held without charge for more than two years.
The four were arrested and questioned by anti-terrorist police at the high-security Paddington Green police station in London before being released.
A fifth British detainee, Mr Jamal al Harith (37), from Manchester, was freed shortly after he arrived in Britain last Tuesday.
Mr Dergoul has claimed he suffered gunpoint interrogations and beatings, while Mr al Harith accused the US military of psychological torture.
But US Secretary of State Colin Powell has dismissed any suggestions that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were ill-treated.