US officials have now made it even clearer that four of the five Britons who returned last week from Guantanamo Bay were far from the innocent wedding party-goers and humanitarian aid givers that they purported to be to the credulous British media. Only one of the five, Jamal al Harith, seems to have a clean bill of health. As the Telegraph reports:

'The US embassy letter, signed by the embassy press counsellor, Lee McClenny, alleged that one of the four trained with an AK-47 rifle and pistol at an al-Qa'eda safe house in Kabul in September 2001, and was a "weapons carrying fighter at Tora Bora", wounded in battle with coalition forces. Two of the others trained for 40 days in autumn 2000 at a military camp in Afghanistan, the letter claims, learning to shoot a rifle, and watching weapons demonstrations. They are described as being captured near the Afghan city of Kunduz, after spending three weeks with a known Taliban unit. One is linked in the letter to "an organisation known to be associated with al-Qa'eda", and is alleged to have called the US and British governments his enemies... British officials privately expressed agreement that the four were not innocents abroad, though they played down any idea of a close connection with al-Qa'eda.'

So why haven't these four been arrested and charged with treason? The abuse of process in Guantanamo would make no difference to any legal process here. It all adds to the impression that, despite its rhetoric, the government is paralysed by a failure of political will. How else to explain the fact that, despite copious evidence of seditious incitement, Abu Hamza is still a free man? How else to explain the failure to act against Mohamed al Masri, who said in an interview on BBC Radio Five Live on March 7 that the death of innocent people was 'acceptable' in the jihad and went on:

'All British targets are legitimate, yes.'

When the interviewer asked him: 'Tony Blair would be a legitimate target?' he replied: Yes. If you join the jihad in the proper way, yes.'

How else to explain the Al Muhajiroun website, which advertises a live talk with Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohamed thus:

'This Saturday's live talk on Paltalk will discuss one of the greatest forgotten obligations in Islam -- inciting religious hatred. Allah orders the believers to hate all other religions, way of lives, creeds, doctrines and beliefs that contradict with Islam, and one cannot be Muslim without to declare animosity and hatred towards kufr, bid'ah, shirk and nifaaq (Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, democracy, freedom etc).'

Why are the British authorities passive in the face of all this?

Posted by melanie at March 18, 2004