Three British residents held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for suspected terrorists have been freed and are due to return to Britain today after more than four years in captivity.
Jordanian Jamil el-Banna, 45, Libyan Omar Deghayes, 37, and Algerian Abdennour Sameur, 33, were due to arrive at an airport north of London accompanied by a doctor and under escort by counter-terrorism police, their lawyers said.
Their release follows years of campaigning by their families for their freedom and pressure by the British government over the last four months to convince the US administration that there are no grounds to hold them.
"I congratulate the Brown government on securing our prisoners' release," said Clive Stafford Smith, the legal director of Reprieve, a legal charity defending them, referring to the government of Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
"These are people who have gone through shocking, shocking abuse," he said. Lawyers for Deghayes say he was blinded in one eye as a result of being beaten while in US custody. US authorities have not commented on his condition.
Smith said he expected the three men to be held briefly for questioning by British police before being released to their families. "The abuse they have suffered, and almost six years' detention without trial, is enough," he said.
Deghayes and Sameur were seized in Pakistan following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, although specifics of exactly why and when they were detained are not clear. Banna was arrested at an airport in Gambia, west Africa, in November 2002.
Banna's wife Sabah, who was pregnant with his fifth child when he was seized, issued a statement expressing her relief.
"It has been a very difficult time but thank God it is now finished and we have justice at last," she said. "I feel so blessed that my Jamil will be home to celebrate with my children."