Relatives of a British terrorist suspect held at the US naval base detention centre in Cuba have pleaded for him to be returned.
Speaking at their home in Tipton, West Midlands, Mr Shafiq Rasul's two brothers, Murtza and Habib, last night demanded their brother be brought back to Britain. They insisted the 24-year-old was no militant and suggested he could have been "brainwashed".
His neighbour and friend Asif Iqbal (20) is also being held in the Guantanamo Bay navy base after they were both seized in Afghanistan.
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Murtza said there were two possible explanations for his younger brother's presence in Afghanistan. "First, he could have been brainwashed and taken over there to fight. The second thing is he could have gone over there to aid the women and the children, the sick and everything," he said.
Murtza said: "This has been like going to hell and back." Habib said his younger brother should be returned for the sake of their disabled mother, Jamila, who was still mourning the death of their young nephew, who died in December.
The brothers said Mr Rasul had travelled to Pakistan in October for a Microsoft engineering course and had openly condemned the World Trade Center attacks.
The family were "amazed" when British Foreign Office officials contacted them last week to say he had been captured in Afghanistan, said Habib.
"He was not radical in any way, shape or form. He had nothing against Americans or anything like that. He was very Westernised," he said.
PA