Britain:Spain sought the extradition of two Arab men for alleged al-Qaeda links yesterday, a day after the United States freed them without charge from Guantánamo Bay and let them fly to Britain.
British police said they had served European Union arrest warrants on Jordanian Jamil el-Banna and Libyan Omar Deghayes, both British residents wanted in Spain on terrorism-related charges.
Lawyers for Mr Banna and Mr Deghayes dismissed what they called "wild" and "stale" allegations by the Spanish authorities and criticised them for failing to ask the US to extradite the men earlier from the Guantánamo camp on Cuba.
Mr Banna, who is 45 but looks much older with grey hair and a beard trailing down to his chest, won a small victory when a judge granted him £50,000 (€69,000) bail until a full extradition hearing on January 9th. He must wear an electronic tag and will be subject to a curfew.
"I want to go home. I [want to] see my children," said the father of five, who was arrested in Gambia, west Africa in 2002.
Melanie Cumberland, a lawyer representing the Spanish authorities, said Mr Banna was accused of being a member of an al-Qaeda cell, known as the Islamic Alliance, in Madrid between June 1996 and July 2001. She argued unsuccessfully against his bail application, saying years of detention in Guantánamo may have made him more radical and likely to commit an offence or flee.
Mr Banna's lawyer, Edward Fitzgerald, said he only wanted to be with his family. "What possible incentive has this man to leave this country, to which he has been fighting to be returned?"
Mr Banna's defence team said he had never been to Spain and the case against him was based on "just a bunch of phone calls he made" to people there. They said US authorities in Guantánamo had concluded he posed no threat, and British officials had acknowledged this.
Clive Stafford Smith, head of legal charity Reprieve, said the Spanish case against the second man, Mr Deghayes (37), was based on mistaken identity. He had been wrongly identified as a Chechen fighter in a video.
Mr Deghayes was seized in Pakistan after the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan. He too was granted bail on the same conditions as Mr Banna.
Spain has requested the two men's extradition under a 2003 indictment filed by Judge Baltasar Garzon against 35 suspected al-Qaeda figures.
The US agreed to free Mr Banna, Mr Deghayes and another British resident, Algerian Abdennour Sameur, after months of pressure from the British government. All three flew back to Britain on Wednesday. Mr Sameur was released without charge.
- (Reuters)