US Court halt to Guantanamo prisoner transfer recognises dangers

12.00.00pm UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 16th Oct 2007

A US District Court has granted a temporary injunction preventing the Bush administration from transferring Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed Rahman to Tunisia. The judge found that the detainee had demonstrated that he faced "devastating and irreparable harm" if the U.S. transferred him.

London Liberal Democrat MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford, who was vice-chair of the European Parliament probe into CIA extraordinary rendition, torture and secret prisons which reported in February, commented:

"It is encouraging to finally see US courts recognizing that many Guantanamo detainees cleared for release face ill-treatment, torture and even death in their countries of origin. While the temporary injunction recognises this, the ultimate fate of this detainee and others rest on a case before the U.S. Supreme Court."

"The US authorities should be well aware of the dangers that many prisoners face, with two men recently transferred back to Tunisia allegedly suffering abuse and mistreatment. The US claims that they receive diplomatic assurances that detainees will not be harmed, but given track records of human rights abuses, these assurances are not worth the paper they are written on. I await a response to letters I have written to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defence Secretary Robert Gates about the breaches of international legal obligations in respect of these two men.

"These troubling events have prompted me and other MEPs at the European Parliament to call on EU Member States to offer resettlement in the EU for Guantanamo detainees that will otherwise be returned to their countries of nationality where they are at risk of abuse. This applies to the British residents including my constituents Jamil el-Banna and Omar Deghayes still shamefully in Guantanamo."