UK asks US to release 5 from Guantanamo

[babylonsister]

UK asks US to release 5 from Guantanamo

By DAVID STRINGER, Associated Press Writer 57 minutes ago

LONDON - Britain called Tuesday for the Bush administration to release five British residents held at Guantanamo Bay — a policy reversal that suggests new Prime Minister Gordon Brown is pursuing a tougher line with the U.S. than his predecessor.

Foreign Secretary David Miliband wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking that the five men be freed, the Foreign Office said.

The new call contrasts with former Prime Minister Tony Blair's refusal for years to intervene in most Guantanamo cases. His government pressed for the release of nine British citizens, and one resident who had provided help to British intelligence services. But it refused to intervene in the plight of other British residents, saying as recently as March that it could not help people who were not citizens.

The men in Miliband's request — Saudi citizen Shaker Aamer, Jordanian Jamil el-Banna, Libyan-born Omar Deghayes, Ethiopian national Binyam Mohamed and Algerian Abdennour Sameur — all had been granted refugee status, indefinite leave or exceptional leave to remain in Britain before they were detained, the Foreign Office statement said.

more...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070807/ap_on_re_eu/britain_guantanamo

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r

[malaise]

2. No surprise at Brown or David Miliband

David Miliband is the son of a great English academic and activist, Ralph Miliband.
Ralph Miliband's The State in Capitalist Society is a classic.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,815389,00.html
<snip>
Though his social democratic beliefs are some worlds apart from Ralph Miliband's convictions, David is his father's son in essential respects, sharing his belief that social justice must be the pre-eminent aim of the Left, and possessing a great gift for argument. A school contemporary remembers: 'David was serious-minded and single-minded even then. But he was also good at getting on with different people. You had to be.'